**i 




; 



nqyiTi 



CyRJ & Gv]sf"Wi\LLO] 







* 






* 







THE JEWISH BWJND^Ry MKS. 



THE 

CHURCHES AND ANTIQUITIES 

OF 

CURY & GUNWALLOE, 

IN THE LIZARD DISTRICT, 

INCLUDING 

LOCAL TRADITIONS. 



ALFRED HAYMAN CUMMINGS, 

F.R. Hist. Soc, Member of the Numismatic Society of London, and Associate 

of the British Archaeological Association ; Vicar of St. Paul's, Truro, 

and late Vicar ofCury and Gunxvalloe. 



E. MARLBOROUGH & CO., LONDON. 
W. LAKE, TRURO. 

1875. 



3 A &<to 

\S75o 






I 



ff 



I 
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Hi 



TO 
THE RIGHT REVEREND FREDERICK 

LORD BISHOP OF THE DIOCESE, 

OF WHICH CURY AND GUNWALLOE FORM A PART, - 

THIS EFFORT TO PRESERVE SOME OF THE ANCIENT 

TRADITIONS OF WEST CORNWALL 

IS AFFECTIONATELY AND RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED 

BY THE AUTHOR. 



CONTENTS. 





PAGE 


Saint Corantyn ..... 


I 


Cury Church ..... 


. 8 


Restoration of the Church 


• 38 


Bochym ...... 


. 46 


Ancient Stone Implements and Celtic Remains 


. 66 


Bonython ...... 


. 80 


Antiquities of Cury and Gunwalloe 


94 


Cury Great Tree ..... 


108 


Saint Winwaloe ..... 


116 


Gunwalloe Church .... 


124 


Wrecks ...... 


133 


Wreck of the Coquette .... 


148 


The Dollar Wreck .... 


155 


Holy Well at Gunwalloe .... 


182 


The " Caerth " of Camden . 


188 


Reminiscences of the Cornish Language 


197 


West Country Folk . . . . . 


215 


The Supernatural . . . . . 


224 


Traditions and Old Customs . 


235 


Manor of Wynyanton . 


245 


Looe Pool ...... 


252 



" Whereby may be discerned that so fervent Was the zeal of those 
elder times to God's service and honour, that they freely endowed 
the Church with some part of their possessions ; and that in those 
good works even the meaner sort of men, as well as the pious 
founders, were not backward." — Dngdalis Antiquit. Warzvickshire. 

" II y a bien des auteurs dans lesquels on trouve des choses singu- 
lieres qui ne se recontrent pas ailleurs. Cela me fait dire qu'on pourroit 
faire un livre fort curieux, qui contiendroit, " ra a7ra£ ciprjfievaLf" 
les choses qui n'ont e'te dites qu'une fois." — Menage. 






" Of your courtesy 
I pray you read the preface." 

Old Play. 



PREFACE. 




HE following pages are not put forth as 
containing very great discoveries or much 
that is new ; they were commenced at a 
time when the restoration of one of the 
oldest churches in the Lizard district was in hand, 
and the interest excited by one or two archaeologi- 
cal discoveries in the parish seemed to favour the 
presumption that a permanent record of these would 
be acceptable to many beyond the immediate 
neighbourhood. 

Thus the notes, which were intended by the writer 
at first only for private use, grew and multiplied, 
until at length they are suffered to appear in their 
present form. 

In several instances things of great interest would, 
in a few more years, have been entirely forgotten 
— as e.g., the custom of keeping Gunwalloe Day, 
described on page 185, and the exact position of a 
circle called Earth, mentioned by Camden, but for 



Vlll PREFACE. 

the last fifty years known only to two inhabitants 
of the parish, both of whom are now nearly ninety 
years of age. 

These particulars of historic interest I have en- 
deavoured to rescue from oblivion, and to stereo- 
type the record of others which might be in danger 
of being forgotten. 

In collecting together particulars and items re- 
specting the two parishes, which might be not only 
of local interest, but entertaining also to the general 
reader and visitor of our Cornish districts, I have 
availed myself freely of all the existing authorities 
within my reach ; for while the large and cumbrous 
histories, whose place more properly is in the public 
library or the houses of the rich, are full of the 
richest stores of information, they are approachable 
by the few, not the many, and much of what they 
contain is not generally known and received. 

I have drawn then upon the information con- 
tained in such books as are given in the list 
appended, and my acknowledgments are due to 
each. 

For King Charles' letter and its translation I 
am indebted to Henry Jenner, Esq., of the MSS. 
department British Museum, who has kindly given 
me every assistance, and whose paper on the Cor- 
nish language read before the Philological Society 



PREFACE. ix 

has materially aided me in compiling the few notes 
I have made concerning the old language of Corn- 
wall. 

Much of the information here respecting Bochym 
has been most ably and willingly contributed by 
Richard Davey, Esq., whose kindness demands a 
more than passing notice, the plate of the mansion 
of Bochym being given to this work by him, and 
he having lent the Bochym Celts for the purpose 
of reproduction in heliotype, to illustrate the paper 
on them. 

I have also to acknowledge the kind aid and 
suggestions of W. P. Courtney, Esq., the talented 
editor of the " Bibliotheca Cornubiensis." 

To Messrs. Parker of Oxford I am under obliga- 
tion for the ready way in which they placed at my 
disposal the block for the illustrations on p. 10. 

All the heliotype plates have been prepared from 
photographs taken especially for the work by Mr. 
Beringer of Helston. 

To all the subscribers my apologies are due for 
the somewhat delayed publication of the work. It 
was commenced in a period of comparative leisure, 
and when there was every prospect of its comple- 
tion at or about the same time as the restoration 
of the church at Cury. 

With very little warning the writer was removed 



X PREFACE 

from the seclusion of a country parish to S. Paul's, 
Truro, a very poor and populous district ; and for 
months literally no opportunity was afforded of 
putting pen to paper to complete what had been 
already begun. 

The church at Cury needed constant supervision, 
and amid the many cares and incessant labour of a 
town parish the projected book had to be laid 
aside. 

The prospectuses were issued, and subscriptions 
had been received, or in all probability the work 
had never been published. Its completion has, 
however, been a source of great enjoyment to the 
writer, and in the fullest sense a recreation in the 
midst of a toiling and busy life. It is hoped that 
its many imperfections may be overlooked in the 
good object which prompted the undertaking. 

S. Paul's, Truro, 
Christmas, 1874. 



LIST OF WORKS REFERRED TO. 



Norden's Survey of Cornwall . . London, 1728 

Camden's Britannia, fol. . . . London, 1789 

Carew's Survey of Cornwall . . London, 1769 

Polwhele's Cornwall .... 1803— 1806 

Staveley's History of Churches in England, 8vo 1773 

Glossary of Gothic Architecture, 3rd ed., 8vo Oxford, 1840 

Whitaker's Ancient Cathedral of Cornwall London, 1804 

Journal of the British Archaeological Association 

Blight's Churches of West Cornwall, 8vo . 

Blight's Crosses and Antiquities of Corn- 
wall, 2nd ed. . 

Lobineau's (Don Gui Alexis) Histoire de 
Bretagne, 2 vols, folio . 

Lyson's History of Cornwall 

Bloxam's Principles of Gothic Architecture, 
8th ed. . 

Testamenta Vetusta, 8vo 

Wright's Celt, Roman, and Saxon, 8vo 

The Antiquarian Itinerary, 8vo 

Oliver's Monasticon Diocesis Exoniensis, fol. 

Parochial History of Cornwall 

Roberts' Early History of the Cymry, 8vo . 

D. Gilbert's History of Cornwall 

Collectanea Antiqua (C. R. Smith) . 

Transactions of the Exeter Diocesan Archi- 
tectural Society, 4to 

History of the Borough of Liskeard, by 
John Allen, Svo .... 

Journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall 

Forest Trees of Britain, by C. A. Johns, Svo 

Week at the Lizard, Svo. 1st ed. 

Life and Raigne of Edward the Sixt, Sir 
John Hayward, Kt., 4to ( . 



Oxford, 


i£65 




1872 


Paris, 


1709 


London 


London, 


1846 


London, 


1826 


London, 


1852 


London, 


1815 


. Exeter, 


1846 


Truro, 


1867 


London, 


1803 


London, 


1838 


London, 


1848 


Exeter, 1850-60 


London, 


i8<6 


Truro, 1858-74 


London 


London, 


1848 


London, 


1630 



Xll 



LIST OF WORKS REFERRED TO. 



Helston. 



London, 
London, 
London, 



1861 
1857 

1870 

1865 
1656 
1814 



1000 Facts relating to Devon and Cornwall 

(Bellamy, J. C), 8vo ' . . Plymouth 

Danish Cromlechs and Burial Customs, Rev. 

W. C. Lukis, F.S.A., 8vo 
Helston Grammar School Magazine, 8vo . 
Traditions and Hearthside Stories of West 

Cornwall, 1st, and 2nd series Penzance, 1873 

Hunt's' (Robt.) Romances and Drolls of the 

West of England, 2 vols, 8vo 
Fuller's Church History, folio 
Ogborne's History of Essex 
Bloomfi eld's History of Norfolk 
Guide de la Touristes dans le Morbihan, Al- 
fred Fouquet .... Vannes, 1844 
Brand's Popular Antiquities, John Brand, 

F.R.S., Bohn, 3 vols . . . London, 1853 

Borlase's Natural History of Cornwall, folio 1758 

„ Antiquities .... 1754 

„ Scilly Isles, 4to . 1756 

Andrews' Anecdotes, Ancient and Modern, 

8vo ..... London, 1790 

Naenia Cornubias, W. C. Borlase, 8vo . London, 1872 

Davies' Celtic Researches, Ed. Davies, 

8vo . . . . London, 1804 

Cornwall and its Coasts, Alphonse Esqui- 

ros, 8vo ..... London, 1685 
The Land's End District, Richd. Edmonds, 

8vo ..... London, 1862 

Long Ago, edited by Alexander Andrew's, 4to London, 1873 
Haunts and Homes of the Rural Population 

of Cornwall, I. Tregellas, 8vo . . London, 1868 

History of the Anglo-Saxons, Sharon Turner, 8vo 1805 

Anecdotes of British Topography, 4to . 1768 

Polwhele's Historical Views in Devon, 8vo 1793 

Statistical Account of S. Just in Penwith, 

Rev. J. Buller, 8vo . . . Penzance, 1842 

Foxes Book of Martyrs . . . London, 1838 

Observations on the Western Part of Eng- 



land, W. Gilpin, M.A., 8vo 



London, 1798 



INTRODUCTION 




UCH has been written, and well, of the 
tongue of land jutting out into the sea, 
that Meneage or Lizard district, which 
Yorms the Cornish Chersonesus of the 
ancients, and certainly this portion of the Cornish 
coast richly deserves all the encomiums that have 
been lavished upon it ; the whole of the district from 
the Looe Bar, across through Helston to Falmouth, 
or round the coves and headlands of its shore line 
to the harbour, which is second only to Plymouth 
and Milford Haven, is full of interest, and a visitor, 
whether he come as a naturalist, an archaeologist, 
an artist, or simply a tourist, working hard in 
search of rest, fresh air, and grand scenery, can- 
not fail to be more than satisfied with the feast 
here spread out for " one and all." 

The meneage is, as its name has been taken to 
imply, a " stony " district ;* but its attractions are 
none the less for that. 



Some have given another interpretation to the name 
i says, in his fanciful way (" A Week at the Lizard "), 



John sa> 



XVf INTRODUCTION. 

The serpentine rocks at Kynance, or the quarries 
of Poltesco, the lovely bit of coast scenery at the 
former place, never to be forgotten by any who have 
once visited it, the rare heaths and other plants 
of the Goonhilly, the remains of Roman stations, 
ancient sepulchral monuments, and prehistoric an- 
tiquities, the grand old ecclesiastical buildings,* 
still containing splendid examples of early art 
both in granite and oak cavings, all combine to 
form a rich field for investigation, and promise 
full remuneration for the interest and labour be- 
stowed. 

the whole of the district south of Helston is called Meneage 
a name by which antiquarians, who maintain the Oriental 
origin of many of the Cornish names, derived from a Per- 
sian word for "alow plant" (heath) of which brooms are 
made. 

* Within the small compass of the Lizard district are no 
less than 12 churches, most of them of great antiquity, and 
all full of interest to the ecclesiologist and antiquary. 

The " number " has been adduced as part proof of 
the theory that in ancient days this was a well populated 
district. 




SAINT CORANTYN. 



To gather whereso'er they safely may, 

The help which slackening piety requires, 

Nor dream that they perforce must go astray, 

Who tread upon the foot marks of their sires. — Wordsworth. 



jearly midway between Helston and the 
Lizard lies the parish of Cury, the church 
town, as the main cluster of cottages is 
called (in other parts of England, the vil- 
lage, in Cornwall always the church town), very 
nearly a mile distant from the high road, so that 
those who have driven only from Helston will per- 
chance have seen the weather-beaten tower but from 
a distance. Yet it has its attractions. 

Tradition has it that, in the ages that are gone, 
the mcneg tract of country contained dense forests,* 

* Norden says (p. 21) Cornwall was all forest, "tota fuit 
foresta," and among the fines of the reigns of Richard's and 
John's times, the deafforestation of Cornwall. " Homines Cor- 
nubia? . . . pro deafforestanda tota Cornubia." 

The Bishop of Exeter, and the barons, knights, and all 
others, of the county of Cornwall, gave M. et CCC. marcis 

B 



2 SAINT CORANTYN. 

and that in the wilds thereof were the rude dwel- 
lings of the early saints who came to convert the 
Celtic race. 

Of these Dr. Borlase names two, St. Corantyn 
and S. Rumon, both of whom were afterwards 
Bishops of Cornwall, and he distinguishes S. Coran- 
tyn or S. Cury as the first Cornish apostle of any 
note. 

The early inhabitants of Cornwall seem to have 

"pro deafforestatione et aliis libertatibus." — Madox, Cornubia. 

A MS. in the Bodleian Lib., containing a history of S. 
Ruan, mentions the meneg as the Sylva Nemea, a forest 
infested with wild beasts, and Leland's Col. v. iii., pp 
152-153, " Nemea sylva in Cornubia plenissima olim ferarum, 
S. Rumonus faciebat sibi oratorium in sylva Nemasa." 

The present state and desolation of the Goonhilly downs 
must not be considered evidence that they were at no time 
covered with wood, nor frequented by wild animals. In other 
parts of the county, now equally unproductive, appearances 
have been discovered indicative of a period when forest 
scenery was not unknown. In 1740 large pieces of unknown 
timber were dug up near Hayle, in such a position that they 
must have grown near the place where they were discovered. 
A few years later on an oak tree, with branches and leaves, 
was found at a depth of 30 feet below the surface in th 
parish of Sennen ; near the same spot were discovered many 
horns, teeth, etc., of large deer. Parts of the strand between 
Penzance and S. Michael's Mount present indications of a 
forest of oak, willow, and hazel, the stumps of which firmly 
rooted in the soil were only a few years since distinctly visi- 
ble at low water — the ancient name of S. Michael's Mount 
was Carick-Luze in Coos, or "the hoar rock in the wood." 



SAINT CORANTYN. 3 

maintained a close connection with the Celtic in- 
habitants of Amorica and Ireland. It certainly is 
not a little remarkable that go back, as we will, as 
far as tradition or history can take us, yet at the 
earliest period that we know anything of Cornwall 
Christianity was already established there. 

The legends and names of the Cornish saints 
are in every respect similar to those in Ireland, and 
it is peculiarly interesting that there are several 
of them whose names are preserved in connection 
with churches on both shores of the channel, 
patron saints equally well known in this peninsula 
of the meneage and on the opposite coast of Bri- 
tany. 

The Bretons emigrated from Cornwall and 
Wales into Armorica, circa 450-500 A.D., and car- 
ried with them their bishops and priests. One 
colony were Danmonii, and a district in Armorica 
was called Danmonium.* 

Many Cornish names are still extant in Britany. 
Trevanion, Caerhayes, and Grylls Castle — the gate- 
way of which bears the arms of the Cornish family 
of Grylls. The inhabitants of Britany still possessf 

* Lobineau's Hist, of Britany, as quoted by Polwhele, vol. 
I, p. 8. 

+ Polwhele, writing in 1806, remarks, in his book concerning 
the language and literature of Cornwall, p. 26, that the late Mr. 



4 SAINT CORANTYN. 

many of the British words, adulterated with an 
impure alloy of barbarous French, and Ireland still 
retains a dialect of the ancient British or Celtic 
language. Speaking of the disadvantages attend- 
ing the suppression of the Cornish language, Bishop 
Gibson (1678- 1700), in his addition to Camden's 
Cornwall, adduces " the loss of commerce and cor- 
respondence with the Amoricans, under Henry 
VII., before whose time they had mutual inter- 
change of families and princes with them." 

S. Corantyn, to whom the church of Cury was 
dedicated by Walter Bronscombe, Bishop of Exe- 
ter, Sep. 1, 1 26 1,* seems to have passed into this 
country through Ireland, the nursery of so many of 
our Cornish saints. As there are two churches in 
the county dedicated to him so there are two ac- 
counts of his life. Dr. Borlase says of him — " S 
Corantine, now called Cury, was the first Cornish 
apostle of any note. Born in Britany he first 
preached in his own country and Ireland, till being 
driven away by violence he betook himself to the 

Trevanion/of Carhayes, in Cornwall, in a tour through Bre- 
tagne, was greatly surprised at the echoes of his own name 
and seat, for he found both a Trevanion and a Carhayes. And 
the French emigrants at Bochym, in 1793, were delighted 
with the similarity of Cornish names to their own, particu- 
larly Bochym and Penquite. 

* Bishop Bronscombe died in 1280. Pol. II, 124. 



SAINT CORANTYN. 5 

life of a hermit, and settled at foot of a mountain 
called Menehout (Menheniot) in the diocese of 
Cornwall. At the entreaty of Grallonus, King of 
the ArmoricanSjhe was consecrated Bishop of Corn- 
wall by S. Martin, Bishop of Tours, and died in 
401." 

Animadverting on this, another historian says 
that he must certainly have died much earlier, as 
Melor, who was murdered soon after the first re- 
ception of Christianity into Cornwall, was educated 
in his monastery. He settled first as a hermit on 
that part of the coast where now stands the chapel 
of Corantyn, or Cury, and from this retirement 
seems to have been drawn by the King of Corn- 
wall to take charge of the monastery of Menhe- 
niot. 

Certain it is that many of the very numerous 
Cornish saints came from Ireland. Fuller quaintly 
remarks — " Cornwall is the Cornucopia of saints 
(mostly of Irish extraction), and the names of the 
towns and villages the best nomenclator of the 
devout men of this age (the 6th century)," and he 
adds with considerable point — " If the people of 
that province have as much holiness in their hearts? 
as the parishes have sanctity in their names, Corn- 
wall may pass for another Holy Land in public 
reputation." 



6 SAINT CORANTYN. 

One of these many Irish saints must have made a 
perilous voyage, if all be true, as there is a tradi- 
tion handed down among the S. Agnes Scilly 
Islanders that S. Warna came over from Ireland in 
a little wicker boat, covered on the outside with 
raw hides, and that he landed here in this Sancta 
Warna bay.* 

IntheTaxatBenef., 1291, the Valor of Pope Nicho- 
las, Cury is called Eccles. S.Ninani, which Ninianwas 
a noble Briton, who died in 432/f* In the King's 
Books it is called " Cap. de Corantin, alias Cury,"J 
and this accords with a remark in Dr. Oliver in his 
Monasticon,§ referring to the gradual altering of 
the divisions and boundaries of the parishes, he 

* Troutbeck Scilly Isles, p. 149. Respecting the influx of 
Irish saints, Leland (Kin. v. 3, p. 4), speaking of S. Briaca 
immortalized in the old Cornish couplet — 
Germow mahtern, Breage lavethas. 
Germow was a king, Breage but a midwife, 
says, " Breaca venit in Cornubiam comitata multis Sanctis ; 
inter quos fuerunt Sinninus abbas qui Romae cum patritio 
fuit. Marnanus monachus, Germochus rex, Elwen, Crewenna, 
Helena, Tecla, Breaca appulit sub Revyer cum suis, quorum 
partem occidet Tewder. Breaca venit ad Pencair. Breaca 
venit ad Trenewith. Breaca edificavit eccles. in Trenewith 
et Talmeneth, ut legitur in vita S. Elwini.— Polwhele, ii. 
129. 

t Collier's Eccles. Hist. v. 1, p. 43. 

X Polwhele ii., p. 129. Hichins, p. 352. Lysomv. iii., p. 76. 

§ Monast. Dio Exon. p. 437. 



SAINT CORANTYN. 7 

instances — " What is now the parish of Cury was 
formerly within the parish of S. Corentinus, and con- 
tained a small chapel, licensed by Bishop Stafford, 
in favour of the monks of Hales who might come 
down to visit their property there." 

In the Exeter Martyrology it is " Festum beati 
Corentini Episcopi et Confessoris, 1 Maii." 



THE CHURCH. 



" In that most miserable period of our history, when it pleased God to 
give those presumptuous men the power, we know too fatally how they 
employed it. Was there anything ancient or beautiful in the House of 
God that they spared ? Nothing. Was there anything that spoke of 
Catholic customs, or that was likely to foster true devotion to God, that 
met with favour at their hands ? Nothing. They tore down our altars, 
they destroyed our painted windows. All carved work in wood and 
stone they levelled to the dust. It is even said that Cromwell frequently 
made the churches into lodgings for his soldiers, and, what was far worse, 
into stables for his horses." 



jHE Church of Saint Corantyn now stands 
in the centre of a little knot of cottages, 
and curiously enough, the level of the 
turf in the churchyard and on the graves 
is now some feet above that of the surrounding 
road. 

This has been caused, it is conjectured, by the 
gradual raising of the ground by the interment of 
successive generations. Its present height is sugges- 
tive, if other evidence were wanting, of the antiquity 
of the structure, in which, it is said, the Liturgy 
was first read in English. 





to 



THE CHURCH. 9 

The edifice itsel£ consists of chancel and nave, 
with a tower at the western end, a north aisle, and 
south transept, which has belonged for generations 
to the Bochym manor and family, and is called the 
" Bochym aisle" 

The porch as at present is a modern invention. 

There is some doubt as to whether the church 
was originally cruciform ; it clearly belongs to 
three periods, the sole remains of the earliest being 
the Norman doorway at the south entrance, of 
XL century date, the nave and chancel is XIV. cen- 
tury, and the north aisle, which contains a window 
of very rare type, of XV. century work. 

The carved oak roof in this aisle, portions of 
which have been denuded of whitewash and plaster 
in the course of restoration, must have been a beau- 
tiful one in the days that are gone. 

The small remnants of carving that remain have 
been carefully preserved and restored, as far as 
possible, to their original positions. 

In his " Churches of West Cornwall, Mr. Blight 
thus notices the interior of the church (p. 30) : — 

" The aisle, of XV century character, is connected 
with the nave by six four-centred arches, the piers 
are shafted at the angles, the space between each 
being a plain cavetto mould ; the capitals are orna- 
mented with a simple and angular kind of foliage. 



IO THE CHURCH. 

The east window of this aisle is the largest in the 
building, and has four lights with geometrical 
tracery; the soffit of the splay is filled with quatre- 
foil ornamentation — a very rare feature." 

Below this window the masonry bears clearly the 
traces of an altar ledge. Perhaps a reredos has 
been let into the wall, but which, having been 
removed, the wall has been made good, after a 
rough-and-ready fashion. 

The alabasters found in the rood-loft staircase 
(described at page 19) may possibly have formed 
part of the altar-piece here, and being destroyed at 
the time of the Reformation, the pieces were buried 
in the rubbish with which the rood-loft opening was 
filled up. We have probably in this only an illus- 
tration of the truth, " One extreme begets another." 
The Homilies of 1562 contained one against the 
peril of idolatry and superfluous decking of 
churches ; but the neglect of churches immediately 
after the Reformation was so general as to call for 
an additional Homily for the " repairing and keep- 
ing clean, and comely adorning of churches."* 

* II. Book of Homilies, iii. — It " is a sin and shame, " as the 
latter expresses it, " to see so many churches, and so foully 
decayed, almost in every corner. If a man's private house 
wherein he dwelleth be decayed, he will never cease till it be 
restored again." 

" And shall we be so mindful of our common base houses, 



THE CHURCH. II 

At the junction of the chancel and transept a 
remarkable hagioscope is formed by a large cham- 
fer of the angle, the superstructure being supported 
by a detached shaft, and arches to small responds 
of similar character. (See illustration.) 

A similar arrangement exists in other churches 
of the Lizard district, as at Landewednack and 
S. Mawgan. In the former of these, however, there 
is an arrangement, of which no traces exist at Cury, 
viz., a block of stone of rude character projecting 
from the foundation of the wall into which it is 
built, used no doubt by those who came to the 
window to stand upon. 

In Cury the wall externally has been thickened 
out into two rounded projections, on the inner side 
of the smaller of which is a window, which may 
have been used as " low side window." Within, it 
is 4 ft. 7 in. above the floor, and its dimensions are 
I ft. 4 in. high by 9 in. wide. 

The purposes of these Lychnoscopes, low side 
windows, and all comers' apertures, as they are 
called, are supposed to have been very various. 
That they were used for witnessing mass, receiving 

deputed to so low occupying, and be forgetful toward that of 
God, wherein be administered the words of our eternal salva- 
tion, wherein be intreated the sacraments and mysteries of 
our redemption ?" 



12 THE CHURCH. 

the host, confession, and doles, seems pretty well 
proven. More particularly, however, were they for 
the solitarii, or lepers, who were not admitted to 
the interior of the sacred edifice, and they are 
found, as might be expected, most frequently in 
the churches near which existed a Lazar-house in 
the middle ages.* 

In Cornwall most of the churches have low side 
windows, and this is accounted for by the fact that 
there were hospitals for lepers at various places in 
Cornwall, the inhabitants of which county seem 
to have been much afflicted with the fearful 
scourge. 

M. Michel,-f* speaking of "the Cagots," a pro- 
scribed tribe in the Pyrenees, says : — " In many 
places, as at Lucarre, in the arrondissement of Pau, 
and at Claracq, in the Canton of Theze (the depart- 
ment of the Pyrenees), where the Cagots were 
admitted to partake of the Holy Sacrament, they 
were still kept apart from other people, and the 
consecrated bread was reached to them at the end of a 
rod or cleft-stick" suggesting at once the method of 
communicating the lepers in Cornwall. 

* There is an interesting article in Long Ago, Vol. I. p. 45, 
on " Leprosy in the Middle Ages." 

t Histoire des Races Mandites de la France et de 
l'Espagne. 



THE CHURCH. 13 

Carew has a quaint passage on this subject : — 

" Lazar-houses, the deuotion of certaine Cornish 
gentlemen's ancesters erected at Minhinet, by Lis- 
kerd, S. Thomas by Launceston and S. Laurence 
by Bodmyn, of which the last is well endowed and 
gouerned. Concerning the other, I have little to 
say, vnlesse I should eccho some of their complaints 
that they are defrauded of their right. 

"The much eating of fish, especially newly 
taken, and therein principally of the liuers, is 
reckoned a great breeder of those contagious 
humours, which turne into Leprosie : but whence 
soeuer the cause proceedeth, dayly euents minister 
often pittifull spectacles to the Cornish men's eyes, 
of people visited with this affliction ; some being 
authours of their owne calamity by the foremen- 
tioned diet, and some others succeeding therein to 
an haereditarius morbus of their ancestors, whom 
we will leaue to the poorest comfort in miserie, a 
helplesse pittie." {Carew, p. 68.) 

Hals, quoted by Polwhele,* writing of Bodmin, 
names the Lowres Hospital, i.e., a hospital of lepers 
(lowre, loure, or lower, is a "leper"), which was 
founded by the piety and charity of the well- 
disposed people in the county in former ages for 
the relief, &c, of all such people as should be 

* Population, p. 88, and Vol. II. p. 112. 



14 THE CHURCH. 

visited with that sickness called the Elephantiasy, 
in Latin lepra elephantiasis, in English leprosy, 
in British lowresy. 

From his account it would appear that, though 
common in Asia, the disease was first brought here 
by seamen and traders from Egypt about A.D. I ioo. 
We know that, in the following century, so wide 
spread was the disease, which had become here- 
ditary or contagious, or both, that it was made the 
subject of legal enactments all over Europe ; and 
was indeed the occasion of the establishment by 
the Crusaders of the military and religious order 
of S. Lazarus. 

About this time, the far-famed hospital at Burton 
Lazars in Leicestershire was established and en- 
dowed, chiefly through the exertions of a gentleman 
named Mowbray, who was himself a leper ; and all 
the Lazar-houses in the kingdom were afterwards 
made subject to this one, and ultimately to S. John's 
Hospital of Jerusalem in London. 

But to return from this digression to the subject 
of Cury Church. Little more than the foregoing 
could have been said of it previous to the work of 
RESTORATION being taken in hand, and which has 
been at length accomplished in the face of un- 
common difficulties. 

That work, however, and the necessary examina- 



THE CHURCH. 1 5 

tion of the walls incident thereon, brought to light 
at least two interesting discoveries, besides the 
rescue of the oak carving of the wall-plate from 
its wretched covering of plaster. 

During the winter of 1872-3 the gales which 
occasioned the very many disastrous wrecks on 
the Cornish coast wrought also serious damage to 
the old and time-worn structure of the church. The 
spring of '73 found the roof "riffled" and stripped of 
its covering to such an extent that it was deter- 
mined to make a strenuous effort to restore it in 
the proper sense of the word. 

Things were at their worst — daylight through 
the roof, water welling up through the floor and in 
new-made graves, the north wall bulging many 
inches, almost feet, out of the perpendicular, fur- 
ther patching was useless. 

It was tken y in the thorough examination of the 
whole fabric, that one after another objects of inte- 
rest were discovered, which not only evidenced how 
ancient the building is, but suggested many ques- 
tions of interest to the thoughtful enquirer as to 
the records of past ages now remaining walled up 
beneath and covered by the monstrous plaster 
coats worn by so many of our country churches, 
as utterly ugly as was Cury, in all their deformity 
of paint and whitewash, but only requiring to be 
stripped of their dirty skin and scraped to the bone 



1 6 THE CHURCH. 

to yield as satisfactory a reward, — needing only to 
be seen to be appreciated. 

In the commencement of the work at Cury, the 
eastern end of the north aisle contained some 
half-dozen high chambers or pews, of the old and 
now happily almost obsolete pattern. The removal 
of these was determined on, and was one of the 
first works performed. Then was seen what had 
been hidden many a long year behind the panels 
of these " family graves," as some one" calls them — 
a piscina in the south corner of the angle formed 
by the pillar and the wall, which would seem to 
support the theory before advanced that at one 
time a sort of lady-chapel, with an altar under the 
window, had been formed by the rood-screen, which, 
stretching right across the aisle, would shut off the 
eastern end of it. 

Unless an altar had existed here, there could be 
no possible use for the piscina ; and as a rule in 
English churches, where the private altars have 
been destroyed, the piscina generally remains to 
mark the situation where each was placed. 

In their munificence private individuals often 
built an aisle with a chantrey -chapel at the east 
end, partly enclosed by screen-work, or annexed to 
the church a transept or additional chapel endowed 
as a chantrey, in order that remembrance might be 
specially and continually made of them in the offices 



THE CHURCH. iy 

of the church ; and it is not improbable, looking at 
the character of the roof and east window of the 
aisle in Cury, so very different from the other por- 
tions of the building, together with the evidences 
of an altar, that a chantrey-chapel existed here. 

It may not be uninteresting to note a few 
instances of such bequests for the reparation of a 
particular church or some work connected there- 
with : — 

Wm. Bruges, Garter King of Amies, 1449. 
" To the whyche said chirch Y bequeth a gret 
holy water scoppe (stoup) of silver, with a staff 
benature (the asperges), the said benature and 
staff weying xx nobles in plate and more." 

John Wilcocks, of Chipping Wycombe, 1506. 

" My body to be buried in the church of All 
Hallondon on Wye, before the rood. To the 
repair of our Lady's Chapel of my grant 
xxiii s iv d . I will that my executors pay the 
charge of new glazing the windows in the said 
chapel." 

Testamenta Vetusta. 

Sir William de Erglium, 1346. 

" Item do et lego ad opus unius Capellae annexas 
Ecclesiae de Somerthy X marc." 

Testamenta Eboracensia. 
C 



l8 THE CHURCH. 

Thomas de la Mare, Canon of York Cathedral, 1358. 

" Item Ecclesiae de Welwick pro renovatione mag- 

nae fenestras Cancelli ejusdem Xmarcas. Item 

ad Cooperacionem Cancelli de Brotherton xl s ." 

(Ibid) 
Sir Marmadnke Constable, Knight, 1376. 

u Item lego pro pavimento Cancelli Ecclesiae de 
Flaynburgh viij s xxvj d . Item lego pro cooper- 
tura et emendacione super altare Sanctae 
Katerinae in eadem Ecclesia cum plumbo xx\" 

(Ibid.) 

John Middleton, 161 1. In Dei no ' i 'e. Amen. 

" Furste, I bequeath my soull to Chr s , my bodie 
to be buried in the Chapell of our Lady w'in 
the Churche of Longefield. It'm. I bequeathe 
to the highth ault' vi d . It'm to the maynte- 
nance of the rode ligtht in the saide Churche a 
cowe, the whiche I wille in the keping of some 
honeste p'son, to the said use, according to the 
discretion of myn exec'." 

Testarnenta Vetusta. 
Proceeding with the examination of the eastern 
end of the north wall of the aisle, probing the wall, 
covered with its 3-inch coat of plaster and white- 
wash, I came upon a large upright slab of Purbeck, 
fixed in the wall after the manner of a door, in a 
spot highly suggestive of a hidden way to the 
rood-loft. 



THE CHURCH. 19 

On removing the slab, a staircase discovered 
itself, but the whole opening was filled to the 
height of five or six feet with debris, lime, and 
human bones, which I proceeded carefully to 
remove with the hands. Buried some two feet in 
the mass, I came upon a carved alabaster head, 
evidently that of our Saviour, about the size of 
one's two fists doubled together ; further down, 
other fragments turned up ; and by the time the 
whole staircase was emptied, I had fourteen heads 
and some hundreds of fragments. 

The rood-loft staircase and doorway are perfect 
Sifting the earth afterwards very carefully, I re- 
covered about fifty more pieces of alabaster, and 
now the work remains to piece them together, and 
discover if possible the original design of the whole. 
This will be more difficult than at first appears. 
The attitudes of the heads seem to suggest that it 
was an altar-piece or reredos, and represented our 
Lord (as a central figure) blessing the Cup, the 
disciples all standing round in attitudes of reve- 
rence or adoration. 

The whole of the figures were originally painted 
and gilt, and the work, so far from being of a rude 
character, is rather the contrary. 

This may have been the altar-piece in the lady- 
chapel, if such existed. It is scarcely possible the 



20 THE CHURCH. 

figures were a portion of the Holy Rood, as in the 
fragments recovered there is no trace of the Cross. 
The Holy Rood, however f though generally placed 
at the entrance of the chancel, was not always so. 
Sometimes it was inserted in niches, or let into the 
wall near the entrance door, and frequently con- 
tained other figures besides that of our Saviour, e.g. : 

11 This rood was not compleat without the images 
of the Virgin Mary and St. John, one of them 
standing on the one side, and the other on the 
other side of the image of Christ, in allusion to the 
passage in S. John's Gospel, xix. 26." — Staveleys 
Hist., p. 199. 

" Likewise, above the top of all, upon the wall, 
stood the most famous rood that was in all the 
land, with the picture of Mary on one side of our 
Saviour, and that of S. John on the other, with 
two glittering Archangels, one on the side of Mary, 
and the other on the side of John." — Ancient Rites 
of Durham — Glossary of Arch., p. 181. 

From their position, and the appearance of the 
whole place, those in Cury must have been buried 
for a considerable period of time, probably broken 
to pieces, pitched in the staircase, and walled up 
by the Puritan reformers, of whose pious doings we 
have such lasting record, both in history and per- 
manent disfigurement of our churches. 



THE CHURCH. 21 

It was in the first year of Edward VI. reign 
(1548) that these images (rood) were ordered to 
be taken down throughout England* In 1553, 
the first of Queen Mary, they were set up again,-f" 
and in 1560, the third of Elizabeth, they were again 
removed and sold. 

But the crowning acts of desecration were re- 
served for more perilous times, more fearless 
agents, when, in the godly zeal which prompted 
the Parliamentary leaders, not even the stone 
crosses on the roofs of the chancels and naves of 
our churches, and on the steeples and porches, were 
spared, but every ornament and embellishment, 
whether simply such, or capable of a symbolic, 
deeper meaning > was ruthlessly torn from its place 
and destroyed. 

By the two illegal ordinances issued A.D. 1643 

* A.D. 1549,2nd Ed. VI. " Item. Sold a rod of iron, which 
the curtain run upon before the rood — nine pence.'' — Fuller's 
Church Hist. 

These injunctions of Ed. VI. were the cause of fanning 
the smouldering discontent of Cornwall into a flame of 
rebellion under Humphrey Arundell. See page 

+ In the " Articles set forth by Cardinal Pole to be 
enquired in his ordinary Visitation of his Diocese of Canter- 
bury," 5th of Queen Mary, a.d. 1557 : — 

" Item. Whether they have a rood in their church of a 
decent stature with Mary and John, and an image of the 
Patron of the same church?" — Glossary of Arch., p. 181. 



22 THE CHURCH. 

and A.D. 1644 by the Puritan Lords and Commons, 
in opposition to the Church and Crown, all crosses 
and crucifixes in churches, and all organs, fonts 
altars, and tables of stone were commanded to be, 
taken down and demolished. 

Communion tables — for stone altars and tables 
were up to this period used indifferently in the 
performance of the Eucharistic rite, and the term 
altar, in the sense in which the Primitive Church 
used it, was expressly recognized and sanctioned 
by the Church of England in the Synod of 1640 — 
were also ordered to be removed, candlesticks taken 
away, and all surplices utterly defaced. 

The Journal of Dowsing,* commencing in January, 
1643, details the devastation committed on the 
exteriors as well as the interiors of 150 churches 
in Suffolk and some other of the eastern counties, 
whilst it also clearly exhibits the gross ignorance 
of the agents employed in these fanatical acts of 
desecration. In one church, Elmset, the commis- 

* "At Haver, Suffolk, Jan. 6, 1643, we broke down about 
100 superstitious pictures, and 200 had been broke down 
before I came. We took away two Popish inscriptions with 
Ora pro ?iobis, and we beat down a great stoneing cross on 
the top of the church." — Journal of W. Dowsing. 

" One Blesse was hired in the time of the Rebellion, for 
half-a-crown a day, to break the painted glass windows of 
the church, which were formerly very fine." — Atibrey, in his 
account of Croydon, Surrey. 



THE CHURCH. 23 

sioners, finding the work had been done before 
their visit, " rent apieces the hood and surplice." 

It was in reference to these acts that Tenison, 
Archbp. of Canterbury, 1694 — 17 15, declared in 
his " Discourse of Idolatry " that it was " high 
superstition in those who, in our late unhappy 
revolutions, defaced such pictures, and broke down 
such crosses, as authority had suffered to remain 
entire, whilst it forbad the worship of them ; and 
was in that particular so well obeyed, that none of 
them ever knew one man of the communion of the 
Church of England to have been prostrate before 
a cross, and in that posture to have spoken to it." — 
Bloxams Gothic Arch. : p. 305. 

Alabaster carvings of one kind or another are 
by no means uncommon in the old Cornish 
churches,* and doubtless many more will be brought 
to light as the work of restoring our early ecclesi- 
astical structures goes on. 

It is a little difficult to describe minutely those 
found in Cury. The fragments are so numerous 
and small that the attempt to join them into any- 

* A few years since an alabaster group—" The Flaying of 
St. Bartholomew " — was found in Lostwithiel Church. 

At Mabe a carved alabaster relic was discovered in a 
built-up aumbrey in the chancel, representing the martyrdom 
of an early Bishop. Of this an account is given in No. XIII 
of the " Journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall." 



24 THE CHURCH. 

thing like the original form would appear from the 
first hopeless. 

The principal head is one of our Blessed Lord, 
about 2\ inches from the top of the head to the 
point of the beard, standing out in bold relief from 
a flat background quite half an inch in thickness. 

The head is encircled with a twisted band, which 
once was painted green ; the background was red, 
and the features, hair, and beard gilt. Sufficient 
of the pigment remains to trace this clearly, and 
the colouring seems to have been of the richest. 

It is almost impossible to attempt an identifica- 
tion of the fragments of other figures, so broken 
are they. The feet are nearly all in a standing 
position on a green ground, apparently to repre- 
sent grass, the ground being irregular and un- 
dulating. Many of the faces are in such an 
" uplifted " attitude, that they indicate the figure 
of our Lord to have been somewhat elevated above 
them, and this bears out what has been suggested 
above as to the probable subject of the piece. 

Judging from the size of the fragments, heads, 
feet, and legs, the whole piece was probably about 
2 feet high, and of proportionate width. 

Later on, in the uncovering of the walls, another 
doorway discovered itself on the south side of the 
church, immediately opposite the former one, and 




CURY CHURCH. 

SOUTH DOORWAY. 



THE CHURCH. 25 

in curious combination with the hagioscope and 
low side window. 

The presence of the latter is to be accounted for 
by the existence in old times of Lazar-houses, but 
it is difficult to find a reason for two rood loft stair- 
cases. 

In this case, the doorway, which is in the tran- 
sept, was blocked up, not by one slab as was the 
opening in the north aisle, but by ordinary loose 
rubble masonry. The stairs turn short to the left, 
and passing over the arch of the hagioscope, emerge 
in an opening in the chancel wall, immediately 
where the screen originally stood. 

On the stairs, buried in debris loosely thrown in 
from above, were the remains of two human skele- 
tons, the bones of one of them being of such immense 
dimensions as to warrant the inference that the 
person in life must have been of gigantic stature.* 

In the south doorway of the church we have 
preserved to us an exceedingly rich specimen of 
Norman work. Whether from a reasonable desire 
to retain a remembrance of the piety of the original 
founder, or from whatever cause it proceeds, it would 
would seem to have been usual with the architects 

* Measuring the bones of the leg, the femur was io\ inches 
long, tibia 17 inches. 

In Hals' MSS. are several curious finds of bones recorded. 



26 THE CHURCH. 

who succeeded the Anglo-Normans to preserve the 
doors and porches of those churches they rebuilt or 
altered ; for, as in this instance, Norman doorways 
exist in many churches, the remaining portions of 
which were erected at a much later period. 

The variety of Norman work on the portals of 
the churches in Cornwall ranges from extreme 
plainness to the utmost richness of ornament, those 
in the Lizard district being unusually handsome. 
At Manaccan and Landewednack are beautiful 
examples, and Cury falls not one whit behind 
them. 

The semicircular stone or tympanum at the head 
of the Norman arch is often covered with symbolic 
sculpture in low relief.* This in Cury is exceed- 
ingly curious, consisting of the chain of " endless 
rings," the well-known emblem of eternity.*)- 

* Over the south doorway of Pitsford Church, Northamp- 
tonshire, S. George is represented combating with the 
Dragon. 

The tympanum of north doorway of Preston Church, 
Gloucestershire, has a rude sculpture of a lamb, the Agnus 
Dei, bearing a cross patee within a circle. On the south 
doorway of Moccas, Herefordshire, is a tree, on each side of 
it an animal destroying a child, presumably the two bears of 
2 Kings ii. 24. — Bloxam's Gothic Arch., p. 91. 

t In S. Martin's Church, Canterbury, there is a very beau- 
tiful font, which is full of sculptured ornamentation— circles 
of endless rings. It is figured in the "Antiquarian Itinerary? 
Vol. I. 



THE CHURCH. 2J 

This doorway was some years ago restored, when 
a modern porch was built over and before it. Exe- 
crably designed and executed, the Goth(ic ?) archi- 
tect has not only placed the ridge of his porch 
eighteen inches out of the centre of the arch of the 
doorway, but has actually cut away the eastern 
jambs of beautiful carved work, in order to get a 
bearing for his wall-plate. 

It reminds one of the fashion of church restora- 
tion five-and-twenty years ago, and of a sketch 
which appeared about that time, but now rather 
scarce, and therefore worth reproducing, contained 
in " Hints to Churchwardens relative to the Repair 
and Improvement of Parish Churches." A couple 
of these hints will be enough, one for exterior, the 
other for interior restoration : — 

Hint I. How to adapt a new church to an old 
tower with most taste and effect : 

" If the tower and spire be of stone, and Gothic, 
let the new body of the church be built of bright 
brick, neatly pointed with white, the windows cir- 
cular at top, and, instead of solid mullions, light 
iron partitions ; and as shutters are considered a 
great convenience, that they may also serve as an 
ornament, it is recommended to paint them yellow. 
" The church should also have round windows 
over the large ones to light the galleries ; the roof 



28 THE CHURCH. 

to be of the brightest slate that can be procured, 
and, instead of battlements, a stone balustrade with 
vases placed on it at intervals. 

" The porch brick, of course, and to enliven it, 
the door to be painted sky-blue. Such a building 
will secure the churchwardens a reputation for taste 
and magnificence as long as the church remains, 
particularly as such zealous members of the com- 
munity are supposed, in the accustomed beautiful, 
modest, and appropriate manner, to place in con- 
spicuous parts of the building their names at full 
length and the date of the achievement." 

Hint. II. directs "How to place a pulpit in a 
suitable and commodious situation." 

" Let the pulpit be placed under the centre of 
the arch, which divides the chancel from the body 
of the church, and let its construction be of a 
nature to contrast it as much as possible with the 
chancel, if it should happen to be of Gothic archi- 
tecture. 

" For which purpose, let the base represent a 
doorway, through which you may see the back of 
the stairs of the pulpit. The body of the pulpit 
should be hung with crimson and gold lace, with 
gilt chandeliers. It should have a back to it, with 
two small pilasters on each side, and a commodious 
door to enter in at, with a large sounding board and 



THE CHURCH. 29 

an angel at the top, energetically blowing a trumpet 
of a tolerable size. All this should appear to be 
suspended from the ceiling by a rich sky-blue chain 
and filagree iron-work. This construction, besides 
its contrast, has the peculiar advantage of hiding 
the east window and altar, not to mention its 
beauty and commanding situation, the back of the 
pulpit being thus studiously and decorously placed 
towards the east, and its front towards the west." 

To return to Cury Church porch. 

In following up a suspicion that in ancient times 
a holy- water stoup existed near this doorway, its 
exact position was not easy to guess, from the fact 
that sometimes the aspersorium is found placed in 
the porch, sometimes within the door, sometimes 
detached from the wall, and outside the church* 

A careful examination, however, of the wall, 
which upon being struck gave forth a hollow sound, 

* In the accounts of All Souls' College, Oxford, in 1458, 
there is a charge " pro lapidibus ad aspersorium in introitu 
Ecclesiae," and its remains are still to be seen, but the 
" aspersorium " was not only the stoup, but sometimes the 
" sprinkle" placed in it. — The Will of T. Beaufort, Duke of 
Exeter, 1426. Nicholls, p. 253. 

In the will of T. Hitton, clerk, Sept. 28, 1428, he desires 

to be buried "In Ecclesiae Conventuali Fratrum Predicatorum 

Beverlaci, modicum infra ostium australe, juxta le ' halhvater- 

fatt? " — Testamenta Eboracensia, pub. by the Surtees Society, 

Part. I., p. 415. 



30 THE CHURCH. 

brought to light the niche for the basin, but the 
basin itself has disappeared, probably at the resto- 
ration (?) above mentioned of the Norman arch, to 
which it is in close proximity. 

It is curious to note that the stoup was not always 
a fixture ; but the term is also applied to the vessel 
used for carrying about holy water to sprinkle the 
congregation, and which forms a necessary part of 
the furniture of a Roman Catholic church. 

" Holi-water stoppe, de argento pro aqua bene- 
dicta cum aspersorio de argento." — Will of Duke of 
Exeter, 1426. 

And in another sense Shakespeare makes the 
King say in Hamlet, act v. sc. 2 — 

" Set me stoups of wine upon that table." 

The font is of plain design, the bowl supported 
by a central pillar and four slender shafts, originally 
of granite, but which in some modern time of repair 
have been replaced by four of polished serpentine, 
while the granite castaways still remain in the 
churchyard, in the spot where they were probably 
thrown by the workmen. 

Not the least interesting of the remains of bygone 
days is a quaint alms-box formed by an ingenious bit 
of carpentry in the oak bench end nearest the door. 

As early as the year 1287, when a Synod was 
held at Exeter, every parish was directed to pro- 



THE CHURCH. 3 I 

vide " cistam ad libros,"* though long before that 
period most of our venerable churches possessed a 
chest or strong box, wherein were deposited the 
sacred vessels and vestments, together with what- 
ever of value pertained to the church. 

Ancient writers speak of the almery or aumbry, 
of which large churches very often contained more 
than one, and in the " Ancient Rites of Durham " 
mention is frequently made of aumbries for diffe- 
rent purposes. 

Such chests, generally placed in the chancel, were 
not always confined to their original uses ; but 
more than one instance is known of their having 
been turned into money-boxes. 

In a Centenary of Ancient Terms in Bloxam's 
"Principles of Architecture " (p. 319) is given : 

Almariol, Ambry, u six great plate locks with 
keys, brought for a certain ' armariol ' in the King's 
Chapel A.D. 1365 ; an 'armariole' in the vestry for 
keeping the vestments in." 

Here, however, we have, not a church chest 
adapted into an alms-box, but an ordinary oak 
bench end, in all other respects exactly like the 
rest of the bench-ends, converted into a receptacle 

* See an interesting paper on " Church Chests " in the 
Journal of the Brit. Arch. Assoc, Vol. XXVIII., pp. 
225. 



32 THE CHURCH. 

for the alms of the worshippers, and that in a very 
original and curious manner. 

A mortice has been cut in the top of the wood- 
work, some four inches in depth, the mouth of 
this being protected with a thin plate of iron; a 
lid, moving on ordinary hinges, was placed on the 
top of it, and, having a slit through it, the coins 
of the charitably-disposed passed into the recep- 
tacle below. 

For safe keeping of the money so deposited' 
the lid is furnished with two hasps, which fall on 
either side of the bench end into two locks pre- 
pared for them, opening with different keys, so 
that, with this double precaution, the money might 
in primitive times be considered fairly safe. Per- 
haps the custom was — who knows ? — for the church- 
warden to have one key, the parson the other, 
rendering unanimity of mind and purpose between 
them, necessary to the proper disposal of the 
church's alms to the poor. 

The tower, which is weather-beaten and lichen- 
covered, forms, from the height of its situation, a 
conspicuous landmark from the neighbouring hills ; 
even from the road at its base the Wolf-rock light, 
nearly forty miles distant, may be seen at night, 
flashing its red and white gleams in friendly warn- 
ing far beyond the Land's End. 



THE RESTORATION. 33 

Cury tower is apparently of two stages, built 
of granite, many of the blocks being so large that 
it is a matter of speculation with the beholder by 
what means in the early days of its erection such 
huge slabs were transported so long a distance (the 
nearest quarries are miles away) and raised to their 
present position. 

Over the western door the initials I.H.C. are cut 
in a shield, and the tower contains three bells, the 
oldest of which is dated 1761, and has for its 
legend — 

■"Jesus de Nazareth Rex Judasorum." 

Inscribed on the tenor is — 

I to the church the living call, 

And to the grave do summon all. 1761.* 

The parish registers go back as far as 1690 for 
baptisms and burials, 1691 for marriages, and the 
oldest entries are on vellum, but the books have 

been mutilated. 

• 

* The same inscription is found on the tenor bell of S. 
John the Baptist, Broadclist, Devon, which has also the 
name of the often-employed maker, Thomas Bilbie, A.D. 
1768. No maker's name is inscribed on the bells at Cury, 
though they may have been from the same hand. 



:. 



CURY CROSS. 




" Gospells at superstions crosses, deck'd like idols." 

Brand's Pop. Ant., Vol. i, p. 199. 

" Relics of a rude but pious age." 

IsCRIPTION ON BOCONNOC CROSS. 



IORNWALL contains so many antiquities 
of the Christian Church, that it forms 
a rich field for the researches of the 
ecclesiologist. Its crosses, which pro- 
bably date back to Athelstan in 936, are very 
numerous, though liable, on account of their con- 
venient size and shape, to confiscation by the 
farmer for service as gate-posts. In spite of this, 
they are to be found everywhere — in churchyards, 
by the roadside, in the centre of a village, or on 
the lonely moorland ; and their use still is, and 
will remain, a mystery. They may have been boun- 
dary-marks, sanctuaries, praying places, or directing- 
posts to pilgrims; certainly some, from their very 
position and situation, served the last purpose.* 

One of the tallest of the ancient monoliths 
stands at the entrance-gate, on the south side of 

* Pradanack Cross, which evidently pointed the way to 
the chapels anciently existing at Trenance and Clahar. 







CURY CROSS. 



CURY cross. 35 

Cury Church. It is a granite cross, nine feet high, 
and some score years ago it was found, detached 
from its base, lying on the ground, and has been 
placed in its present position at a guess, its original 
situation being unknown. Very lately, the cross at 
Gunwalloe has been set up in the churchyard 
there, as being the best and most likely spot to 
secure its preservation, though there is every reason 
to believe that its original position was by the side 
of the small stream which runs through the cove 
into the sea, at the point where it is now crossed 
by Gunwalloe Bridge.* 

Respecting the use and introduction of these 
crosses, of which so many examples remain to this 
day in Cornwall, in our churchyards, by the way- 
side, in the market-places, and even private gardens, 
it is pretty well acknowledged that the first Cor- 
nish missionaries came from Ireland, where crosses 
were by no means uncommon, and it is more than 
probable that many of the crosses in this county 
were erected at the period of its evangelization. It 
has been held that, as the Christian symbol, it 
would come with Christianity, and if so, would be 
entitled to a still earlier date than named above, 
somewhere about A.D. 60. 

The Knights Templars, as well as the Knights 
of S. John, held lands in Cornwall, and the peculiar 

* See Gunwalloe, p. 132. 



36 CURY CROSS. 

form of their cross occurs in a few instances in the 
county. 

One of the indulgences afforded to the Crusaders 
was exemption from the usual feudal services of 
their lords ; and a practice arose of erecting crosses 
on their lands, to indicate that the feudatory had 
become the soldier of the Cross, and was exempt 
from the usual services due to his superior. 

Sometimes these crosses marked the place of 
sepulture,* but not always so, even in churchyards, 
where one was sometimes placed near the south or 
chief entrance to the church, suggestive of due pre- 
paration previous to entering the sacred building. 
From such crosses proclamations were made, and 
occasionally congregations were addressed from 
the same spot, as was long done at Paul's Cross. 

Writing of one of the old West Cornwall crosses 
(S. Levan) Mr. J. Sedding-f- thinks that it no doubt 
marks the old path to the church, since it was a 
custom in mediaeval times to erect crosses at in- 

* In the Border warfare, Armstrong of Mangerton, having 
been assassinated, was buried at Ettleton, and a cross was 
set over his grave. Another cross, called the Mangerton 
Cross, remains to this day at Millholm, on the spot where 
the coffin rested previously to the interment. — Blight's 
Crosses, Introd., p. v. 

To a similar use do the crosses at Waltham, Charing, and 
elsewhere owe their erection by Edward I. 

+ Notes on S. Buryan Church. Trans. Ex. Dioc. Arch. 
Soc, Vol. II., Part 3. 



CURY CROSS. 2>7 

tervals on the road to the church, beneath which, 
in a funeral procession, the body was set while the 
mourners rested on their way and said psalms and 
prayers, a custom which, in the usual processional 
hymn-singing at a Cornish funeral, has left its traces 
to this day. 

This accounts too for the presence of crosses or 
the fragments of crosses in all sorts of out-of-the- 
way and unexpected situations ; perhaps in the 
quaint words of Wynken de Worde, in Dives and 
pauper" where he justifies their erection : — " Ht is 
nothing efe but a boke or a tofcen to rlje lefotie People 
for tl)te reasons beit ©rosses mate bg tije foag tf)at foijan 
folfee pajiSgnge gee tije @ro*$e tljeg sljoulce tijgnfce on 
Ijgm tfjat oget) on tj&e Crosse ant) foorsijgp Jjgm abobe 
all tfjgng." 

In Mr. Anstey's " Munimenta Academica " there 
is the following from the last will and testament of 
Doctor Reginald Mertherderwa, rector of 5. Cridcg. 
Virg. date Feb. 1 1, 1447. 

Item. Volo quod sumptibus meis et expensis 
ordinentur, et de novo erigantur, novae cruces de 
lapidibus, quales habentur in illis partibus in Cor- 
nubia, incipiendo a Kayr Beslasek usque ad Eccle- 
siam de Camborn, et ponentur in locis ubi solebant 
corpora defunctoram portandorum ad sepulturam 
deponi, pro orationibus fundendis ibidem et allevia- 
tione portantium. 



THE RESTORATION OF THE CHURCH. 



E'en such is time : which takes in trust 

Our youth, our joys, and all we have ! 

And pays us nought but age and dust, 

Which in the dark and silent grave, 

When we have wandered all our ways 

Shuts up the story our days.— Sir W. Raleigh. 



flE restoration of the church proved to 
be a work of time and labour, far beyond 
what was first anticipated, and it will 
not be amiss to put on permanent record 
what has been done during the years 1873-4. It 
may prove a stimulus to those who in succeeding 
years shall be moved to do something for the 
house of God in that place. 

The entire north wall of the church was found 
many inches out of the perpendicular, and was 
supported by buttresses which had been increased 
in number from time to time. To repair this was 
impossible, the only course open was to take down 
the whole wall from end to end, and underpin the 
roof while rebuilding it in its original form. All the 




THE RESTORATION. 39 

which are of granite, being redressed and placed in 
their original position. 

An old doorway and steps on the north side of 
the church was completely useless owing to the 
banking up of the earth outside and the lowness 
of the arch, which was but four feet high. The bank 
was opened out, the jambs of the doorway, re- 
stored and lengthened with granite, and steps built 
outside the church, so that this entrance may be 
made available on occasions like harvest festivals 
when a large number of people would be gathered 
in the building. 

The wall plate of the roof of this north aisle was 
found to be carved oak, the ordinary rope and 
leaf-pattern so common in Cornwall, but buried 
under three inches of plaster, it had taken no great 
harm. The transverse ribs of the waggon roof were 
all of oak, but the longitudinal had vanished, their 
places being filled with plaster and whitewash. This 
roof has been repaired most carefully, every bit of 
the carved work preserved wherever practicable, 
ribs placed through the whole length to match the 
cross ribs, thus restoring the ancient waggon pat- 
tern, the whole being lined with pine and varnished. 

There were evident traces of bosses having once 
been in existence here, though there were no re- 
mains of any to be found. By the munificence of 



40 THE RESTORATION 

a private friend,* the whole roof has been enriched 
with exquisitely carved oak bosses, which not only 
enhance the beauty of the roof, but also give some 
idea to the mind, of its original appearance. Each 
of the bosses is a work of art in itself, and they 
are executed with a skill one is unaccustomed to 
see in such wild and desolate districts as the Me- 
neage. 

Those blendings of fruits and flowers, figures of 
men and beasts, in wondrous groupings full of 
beauty — 

" All out of the carver's busy brain," 
were a fit offering of art for the House of Him 
from whom flows first all gifts of skill and art, and 
the power to work and fashion copies of the beau- 
tiful in nature's world. 

For those whose interest may lead them deeper 
is appended a list in detail of the subjects of the 
bosses, commencing from the East end. 

Cornish giant and oak. Hops. Columbine foliage. 

Boar's head and oak Cornish miner at 

leaves. work. Filberts & foliage. 

Giant and columbine 

foliage. Eagle and hare. Oak and foliage. 



* These bosses, 27 in number, were all designed from 
nature, and presented by W. Webster, Esq., of Blackheath 
and London. 



OF THE CHURCH. 41 



Tiger's head and 






foliage. 


Cornish miner. 


Acorns and foliage. 


Stag and oak. 


Fox and grapes. 


Cornish miner at 
work. 


Sycamore foliage. 


Cornish miner. 


Boar hunt and oak. 


Foliage. 


Hops. 


Brambles. 


Foliage. 


Ivy. 


Maple leaves. 



The half bosses at each end of the aisle are — 
Mandrake. Convolvolus. Maple. 

In the nave the roof was found so very far gone 
and rotten that an entirely new one was a neces- 
sity. Here was the great difficulty with the ama- 
teur who planned and overlooked the work. To 
take off the whole roof of the nave, some 50 or 60 
feet in length, with a 17 to 20 feet span, was a 
giant work to an untried yet responsible mind. An 
architect was an impossibility, the low state and 
promise of fnnds forbade such a luxury ; what was 
to be done must be done bit by bit, piecemeal, as 
money could be found. 

Nothing was to be gained by temporising, so at 
once and boldly the old roof was removed ; the 
author drew plans for a new one which should be 
somewhat in keeping with the rest of the church. 
Substituting an open roof with hammer beams and 
king posts for a flat whitewashed ceiling, and one 
or two dormer windows. The whole of the new roof 
was lined with pitch pine, shewing the principals 



42 THE RESTORATION 

and varnished. On the ends of the sweeps small 
shields carved with sacred emblems and monograms 
picked out in colour, preserved the whole from 
anything approaching to monotony. 

Previous to this a hideous western gallery, which 
blocked up the tower arch, and some 15 feet of the 
body of the nave and aisle, had been removed, and 
so throwing open the fine old tower, a good view 
was thus to be obtained of the whole length of the 
church from the western door in the tower ; the 
doorway was recut, and so far restored as to be 
capable of use. 

In the chancel, the roof being a fairly good one» 
was not meddled with exteriorly, excepting so far 
as to make the lead gutters necessary for the proper 
protection of the whole in the rainy season. In- 
teriorly it was made to match the nave by casing 
the principals, and adding hammer beams and king 
posts. 

This was also done with the Bochym aisle,* and 
thus the whole of the church was, so far as roof 
was concerned, made good and good to look at. 

At the east end a very plain four light lancet 
window, but in very good condition, existed, and 

* The whole cost of the restoration of the Bochym aisle 
was borne by the Davey family of Bochym, of whom see 
p. 62. 



OF THE CHURCH. 43 

windows, this was allowed to remain, and does 
remain, untilsome kind friend will embrace the 
opportunity of placing stained glass there, in so 
fitting and beautiful position for a memorial window. 

On either side of the window, in place of two zinc 
plates painted, are now placed four beautiful porce- 
lain tablets upon which are illuminated in gold and 
colour The Creed, Lord's Prayer, and Ten Com- 
mandments. They were made expressly for Cury 
Church by the well-known manufacturers, Messrs. 
Copeland and Sons, and were a gift from one of 
the firm.* 

They are of most delicate workmanship, and are 
of the most permanent character. The frames in 
which they are placed are of black oak, constructed 
from the remains of some of the old bench ends 
in the church. The design is Gothic, with trefoil 
ornamentation. In addition to these very handsome 
and costly tablets, the same friend of the author 
gave a set of communion plate in silver, of very 
plain workmanship, but exceedingly appropriate, 
and in keeping with the rest of the appointments. 

The whole of the windows were recut and glazed 
with cathedral glass supplied by Messrs. Clayton 
and Bell, with the exception of two, which were 
executed in Vitremanie and Diaphanie by the 

* W. F. M. Copeland, Esq., Russell Farm, Herts, 



44 THE RESTORATION 

author — one in the western tower, containing the 
figures of the Four Evangelists, each in a niche 
surmounted by a Gothic canopy, and a small 
window over the font (the cost of which was de- 
frayed by Mrs. Taylor, another personal friend), 
the subject being appropriately the Infant Saviour 
and the Adoration of the Shepherds. 

The work of draining was not an easy one, 
but has been effectually accomplished, not be- 
fore needed, as will be acknowledged when it is 
mentioned that the water before the restoration 
was commenced often welled up through the floors 
of the seats, and that, on one occasion, a funeral 
was delayed in the church some minutes while the 
water was baled out of the grave in which the coffin 
was to be placed. 

The old family pews and dens having being de- 
molished, the whole of the seats in the nave and aisle 
have been constructed of Oregon and pitch pine, 
varnished natural colour, and this adds greatly to 
the pleasing effect of the whole. 

Looking back upon the work, after being per- 
mitted to see its completion, the writer cannot but 
be thankful at the results of what it would be false 
humility to deny has been an arduous task ; but 
the unanimity and good feeling which all those 
concerned in the work have evinced from beginning 



OF THE CHURCH. 45 

to end, has made it less difficult than it might 
well have been, and the munificence of a few has 
enabled those who were responsible for the work 
to carry it out in a way that but for such assistance 
would have been impossible.* 

The church was re-opened by the bishop of the 
diocese on the 16th July, 1874. 

An early celebration fitly began the day, and at 
the second service, which was choral throughout, 
was mustered a strong choir, and not a few of the 
neighbouring clergy. A very crowded congrega- 
tion had gathered from all parts to hear the bishop 
preach — which he did from Luke ii., 19. 

The service concluded, the fine old house of 
Bochym, with its picturesque gardens and grounds, 
became the centre of attraction to some hundreds 
of people who had been drawn together by the 
day's event Amusements and sale of work for the 
benefit of the Restoration Fund, were carried on 
to a late hour, and very few of these who were 
present will easily forget the Festival and all its 
train of reminiscences. 



* The whole cost of the work, including all gifts, was 
about ^900 ; not one farthing of which was granted from 
any society or public body, and a great proportion of it raised 
by small subscriptions. 



BOCHYM. 



' Qui veull ouyr nouvelles 
Etranges a compter, 
Je scay les nonpareilles, 
Qu, homme ne scauroit chanter, 
Et toutes advenues 
Depuis long terns en ga, 
Je les ay retenues, 
Et scay comment il va."— Old French Song. 



N the very edge of the bare Goonhilly 
downs stands in the parish of Cury, amid 
a luxuriance of foliage, all the more 
beautiful because of the succeeding bar- 
renness, the ancient house and manor of Bochym ; 
more than once quoted, and that truly, as " the 
first and last " gentleman's house in England. 
It is a familiar object to those who pass along 

* From " La legende de Maitre Pierre Fai-feu." — Fifteenth 
century. 

Those who wish to hear a ditty, 

Fill'd with many a wondrous thing, 
To my sonnet let them listen, 

Such no other bard can sing. 
Many years ago, believe me, 

Chanc'd these wonders to befall, 
Yet the whole, I well remember, 

And intend to tell them all. 




BOCHYM. 47 

the road to or from the Lizard ; that quaint old 
picturesque building, all corners and gables, em- 
bosomed in a bed of trees, and shrubs, and gar- 
dens. 

If just fresh from Kynance, with its bare moor- 
land face and shining rocks, the contrast is all 
the more striking, as the beauteous landscape bursts 
upon the view. One single turn of the road bring- 
ing it all before us as in a very picture, while if the 
contrary be the wayfarer's direction, and his face is 
set toward the Lizard, the bare Goonhilly will ap- 
pear to him more barren for the exceeding loveli- 
ness of the spot he has but now left behind. 

It may well occur to the reader what has Bochym 
to do with the antiquities of Cury ? It is far too 
lovely by nature to have a share in dry and musty 
archaeologies, much more is it likely to possess a 
romance of sword and siege and imprisoned 
maiden. 

But it has both. It is, indeed, a remarkable 
manor and estate, with a pedigree as long as any 
could wish for, and a history romantic enough for 
the most ardent imagination ; and here also was 
made a discovery of Celtic implements, of intense 
interest to the historian and antiquarian, which 
may help the effort to elucidate and understand 



48 BOCHYM. 

the habits and usages of those who lived in times 
essentially of legend and tradition. 

The Saxon Conquest of Cornwall by Athelstan 
dates 935, though that the conquest was incomplete 
is to be inferred from the struggles of the Britons 
against the Normans a whole century later. In 
997 the whole of Cornwall was desolated by 
the Danes, of whose incursions, however, very 
scanty records exist ; but, in 1068, Godwin and Ed- 
mund, sons of Harold, came over from Ireland and 
overran the whole land. Then came the portion- 
ing out of the Domesday,* when all Cornwall was 
divided among six lords, three lay and three cleri- 
cal, besides the royal portion. 

Of the lay lords the most famous was Robert, 

* This Domesday, or Domus Dei Book, called so as Stone 
asserts because deposited at Westminster or Winchester, was 
begun by order of William the Conqueror in 1080. The 
reason for this survey has been given, that every man should 
be satisfied with his own right, and not lump with impunity 
what belonged to another ; but more probable than this (for 
there was already a survey in existence made by order of 
King Alfred), those who possessed landed estates became 
vassals to the king, and paid him fee or homage in propor- 
tion to what they held. 

The survey was very strict and minute, so that the " Saxon 
Chronicle" records— there was not a single hide, nor one 
virgate of land, nor even an ox, or a cow, nor a swine, was 
left that was not set down. 



BOCHYM. 49 

Count of Mortcin in Normandy, half brother to 
William the Conqueror, and to him fell the lion's 
share ; and, in the Domesday survey, " Buchent " 
is included with Helston, and the surrounding 
manors in the " Terra; Comitis Moritoniensis!' 

To trace one's history back to the Norman Con- 
quest is far enough for most people, but Buchent 
was taxed before the days of the Domesday Book ; 
for in the time of Edward the Confessor one Bris- 
tualdus held the manor, who paid " geld " or tri- 
bute to the amount of three shillings for an aggre- 
gate of 230 acres, besides 20 acres of pasture, and 
20 acres of wood, on which the four bordarii, or 
cotters,* who tilled the soil were settled. This, 
of course, would not include any of the waste 
lands of the manor, which may have been very 
extensive, the land under cultivation being alone 

* Bordarii, or borders, were in a less slave-like condition 
than the villain of Norman times ; the name originated from 
their living in a cottage on the borders of the manor, and 
they held some land as their own, on condition of supplying 
the lord with poultry or other articles in kind. 

But, however the serf villain, and borderer, might differ 
in other respects, persons who were in these respective con- 
ditions were so firmly fixed to the land on which they were born 
that they were not able by any act of their own to separate 
themselves from it ; they were adscripti glebes, as much in 
thought as in person, and probably never thought or wished 
to change their place. 

E 



50 BOCHYM. 

described, and the 20 acres of wood probably re- 
fers to a certain portion of the manor in which 
the bordarii had the privilege of cutting fuel. 

The name and etymology of " Bochym." u Bu- 
chent " has been a matter of much speculation. 
Beauchamp (Norman French), Bochim (Hebrew, 
weeping), both suggested as connections, with 
surely as little warrant in one case as the other. 
Beuch (cattle), ham (house), seems more probable, 
but who shall decide ? As a recent writer has sug- 
gested,* let any one -who feels surprised at large 
alterations in names, especially in ancient names 
existing long before their owners could read or 
write, remember the vexata qusestio respecting the 
name of Will Shakspear(e). 

It may be taken for granted " that the possessors 
of the manor took their name from the place where 
they were born and bred, and if John begat James, 
and James begat Charles, and Charles begat Thomas, 
and Thomas wished to distinguish his name of 
Thomas from other Thomases in the neighbour- 
hood, he called himself Thomas de Bochym, from 
the place of his birth, just as the gentleman over 
the way called himself Thomas de Bonithon." 

The name Buchent, represents a sound akin 

* Rev. Aug. Jessop, Helston Gram. Sch. Mag., No. 2, 
P- 57- 



BOCHYM. 5 1 

to Bokint or Bokimt, and if one only realizes for a 
moment how difficult it is in the present day to 
write correctly a strange Cornish name, on hearing 
it first pronounced, the mistakes and various read- 
ings of old documents will appear less remarkable 
If this be taken into account, there is an entry in the 
fines of King John* which may have reference to the 
family of Bochym . 

At a court holden at Launceston in the third 
year of King John, Sybilla, Margaret, and Juliana, 
daughters of one William Baucan (Bocin) sold to 

one Roger some land which they possessed in 

Penryn, the extent of which and the price is unfor- 
tunately illegible. -(• 

The de Bochyms, at any rate, held the manor in 
1549, at which time the then owner joined the re- 
bellion raised by Humphrey Arundell, and being 
defeated by the king's general at Clifton, the rebels 
were attainted and forfeited their lives to the 
crown. 

The quaint historian Norden thus relates it : — 
" Bochim, the howse wherein that instrument of re- 
bellion Wynslade dwelled, at the time wherein he 
vndertooke to be one of the leaders of the Cornish 
rebellious troupes in their commotion in anno 



* Printed by the Record Commission in 1835. 
+ See Fines, 7 Ric. 1, 16 ; Johan., vol. i., p. 352. 



52 BOCHYM. 

1549; for which being attaynted and exequuted, 
the lande was purchased by Reynolde Mohuuc, 
Esquire, since whose time it came to Mr. Billet 
by marriage." 

The circumstances which led to the outbreak 
here referred to are so much less known, than 
might be supposed, that a short account of them 
may be worth recording here. 

The suppression of the monasteries by Henry 
VIII. created a very wide spread discontent, more 
especially in remote districts where monks had been 
of some use, and the religious houses had done 
least harm, and this feeling smouldered on until 
the accession of Edward VI. to the throne, when it 
only needed the injunctions of 1549, for the re- 
moval of images from the churches, to fan the 
smoke into a flame. 

As the commissioners passed through Cornwall 
to carry out their instructions, one of them, Mr. 
Body, proceeding to this duty in Helston Church, 
was stabbed by a priest, whereupon all the people 
flocked together in a rebellion headed by Hum- 
phrey Arundell, of S. Michael's Mount. 

We learn from Hals, that the principals in the 
murder were a priest and a Mr. Kilter, of S. Keverne, 
and that Mr. Body, immediately on being stabbed, 
fell down dead in the church at Helston, where the 



BOCHYM. 53 

riot had broken out ; and, although justice was done 
upon the offenders, yet many of the landholders 
sympathized with the priests, and ejected monks 
who were furious, and the murder of Mr. Body only 
occasioned a closer union among the disaffected, 
who, in the words of Foxe,* " ceased not by all 
sinister and subtle means, first under God's name 
and the king's, and under colour of religion, to 
persuade the people then to gather sides, to assem- 
ble in companies, and gather captains, and at last 

to burst out in rank rebellion the 

number of the whole rebellion, speaking with the 
least, amounted to little less than 10,000 stout 
traitors." 

Of those who were associated as leaders with Hum- 
phery Arundell in this rebellion, Robert Bochym, of 
Bochym, and his brother were among the foremost, 
and with the exception of one other, William 
Wynslade, of Tregarrrck, were almost the only 
men of respectability concerned in it. 

Of those rebels Hals has the following notice : — 
" The manor of Mythian was for- 
merly the lands of Winslade of Tregorick, in 



* See Polwhele, vol. i., p. 62. Life and Raigne of Kg. 
Edward the Sixt, by Sir J. Hay ward. 
Book of Martyrs, vol. v., pp. 730. 



54 BOCHYM. 

Plynt, an hereditary esquire of the white spur, 
who forfeited the same, with much other land, 
by attainders of treason, tempore Edvardi 6. So 
that he himself, or Queen Mary, gave those lands 
to Sir Reginald Mohun, of Hall, Knight, or his 
father, who settled them upon his younger son " 
(Hals, p. 3). Again he says — " Bochym gave name 
and original to an old family of gentlemen sur- 
named de Bochym, temp. Henry VI II., who were 
lords of the manor and barton, till such time as 
John Bochym, temp. Edw. VI., entered into actual 
rebellion against that prince under the conduct of 
Humphrey Arundell, Esq., governor of S. Michael's 
Mount, and others ; whose force and power 
being suppressed by Lord John Russell, lieute- 
nant-general of that prince, at Exon, and those 
rebels attainted of treason, their lands were for- 
feited to the crown. Whereupon King Edward 6 
gave this barton and manorto Reginald Mohun, Esq., 
sheriff of Cornwall, 6th Edward VI., who gave this 
barton of Bochym to one of his daughters married 
to Bellot, now in possession thereof. The manor 
of Bochym he settled upon his great grandson Wil- 
liam Mohun, Esq., now in possession thereof. 
Lastly, by this rebellion, Bochym lost not only 
his lands but his life also (Hals, p. 79)." 

After the defeat and dispersion of the rebels 






BOCH YM. 5 5 

here described, which happened on Clifton Downs, 
August 19, 1549, the division of the confiscated 
property very soon took place. 

Sir Humphrey Arundell's possessions in Devon 
were given to Sir Gawen Carew, and S. Michael's 
Mount to a Job Militon, who appears to have been 
sheriff of Cornwall, 1st Edward VI., 1547, and 
the manor of Bochym was bestowed upon Regi- 
nald Mohun> 

The deed by which the mansion was settled upon 
his daughter Anne Bellott, is still extant ; it is 
dated at Bochym, 27th Oct., 1565, and the seal of 
one of the trustees still remains after 300 years 
have passed away. 

By this document her husband Francis Bellott 
had only a life interest in the property, and in the 
event of no children being born to them the estate 
was to revert again to the Mohuns. 

It is described as " totam illam mansionis domum 



* He was descended through John, 8th baron, from Wil- 
liam de Mohun who, in some authorities, is described as 
Lord of Dunster. This William Moyne or Mohun came 
with William the Conqueror, and was by him rewarded for 
his services in a most substantial manner, for he received as 
many as fifty-six lordships, and his descendants sat in Par 
liament as Lords de Mohun until the reign of Edward III., 
when John de Mohun, 9th baron, dying without male issue, 
the title became extinct. 



56 BOCHYM. 

et bartonem de Bochim." One of the boundaries 
is the stream named as " The Ribble," and it ex- 
tended as " quandam arborem siccam." Apparently 
it was only the mansion with its gardens and 
grounds, about 300 acres of land ; for, in 1616, the 
manor passed from the possession of William Mo- 
hun (to whom it had been willed by the Reginald 
Mohun, its first possessor of that name) into that 
of Renatus Bellott. 

Doubtless a family of Bellotts had in these years 
grown up at Bochym, and it appeared desirable 
the owners of the mansion should possess also the 
manor; for, in a deed dated Dec. 20, 1616, " the 
Manor of Bocliym alias Bosym" is made over to 
Renatus Bellott, in conformity with his granfather's 
will, for a payment of £330 on his part; oddly 
enough, however, only a part of the original manor 
is surrendered — Cury, Landewednock, Gunwalloe, 
and Goonhilly, going with Bochym — and other 
parishes enumerated, " hitherto reputed parcel of 
the said manor" being retained by the Mohun 
family. 

The close of the year 16 16, thus sees Bochym 
mansion and manor fairly settled in the hands of 
Renatus Bellott ; but an ominous sentence in 
Hals' writing meets us. He says — " This estate of 
Bellott's is all spent by riot and excess, and, as I 



BOCHYM. 57 

take it, the name extinct in those parts, and this bar- 
ton sold to Robinson." 

This was about i7io,theRenatus Bellott who last 
owned it having died the year before.** What the 
history of the family was during the century they 
possessed this manor, we learn from another writer, 
and his record is well worth preserving.-f* 

" This same Renatus Bellott, to whom the Manor 
of Bochym was conveyed, seems to have inherited 
his forefather's talent for making a good match.'' 
He married twice and well ; first, Philippa, daugh- 
ter of William Bear, Esq., of Pengelley, in S. Neots ; 
secondly, a sister of General Monck afterwards 
Duke of Albermarle. The former of these was an 
heiress, and it is not likely that a descendant of the 
old Norman family of the Moncks of Potheridge 
would be without a suitable jointure. 

Of the six children born to Renatus Bellott the 
eldest son did not succeed to the Bochym property, 
which came to the second son Christopher. 

A marriage settlement deed, under date 1666 
provides that — William Pendarves, Esquire, of Ros- 

* The Renatus Bellott, who died of a fever in 1709, left 
a son of the same name, who died when eight years old, 
July 11, 1712. 

+ Rev. Augustus Jessop, M.A., Old Seats of Cornwall, in 
Helston Grammar School Mag., p. 127, et seq. 



58 BOCHYM. 

crow, should give his daughter Bridget ^"1,000 as 
her marriage portion, while Christopher Bellott 
should, for his part, give his wife, the said Bridget, 
a life interest in the house and manor of Bochym. 

The signatures to this deed are wanting, and 
from this it would appear that the marriage por- 
tion was not paid till ten years later, on or after 
the death of Bridget's father, for it was in i6/6» 
that a second deed was executed by Christopher 
Bellott according to the tenor of the first agree- 
ment. 

During the commotions caused by the civil war 
the owners of Bochym seem, with most others of 
the Cornish gentry, to have suffered somewhat 
from the incursions of the belligerents — friends and 
foes. It may be that, in the troublous times that 
preceeded the Commonwealth, the Bellotts took an 
active part : the old mansion would form a secure 
retreat and hiding place for any of the " proscribed 
royalists " fleeing before the victorious armies 
which penetrated even this extreme of Cornwall — 
then it may be, if never before, the secret staircases 
and sliding panels in the wainscoat of the oak room 
were called into requisition, and gave time for flight 
and safety to the royalist refugee ; at any rate, we 
may imagine that Bochym was on the king's side 
and that the injury, if any, was at the hands of the 



BOCHYM. 59 

Parliamentarians, for immediately on the restora- 
tion Christopher Bellott appears before the House 
of Commons as a petitioner (30th July, 1660), 
though whether his prayer was granted or he bene- 
fitted does not appear. 

In 1692 his name appears as high sheriff of Corn- 
wall. 

The next heir to the estates of Bochym, and the 
last of the Bellotts who posssssed them, is a Renatus 
again, the only son of Christopher and Bridget. 
Brought up with seven sisters, the only boy, he was 
spoiled, and in manhood became a spendthrift, 
borrowing, mortgaging, and never paying, till at 
length Hals' words record the truth, and in 17 12 the 
estates are spent and the name extinct. 

He married, as his grandfather had done before 
him, an heiress, Mary Spour, or Spur ; and, had he 
survived his wife, would have inherited the estate 
of Trebartha ; she, however, outlived him as well 
as her son, and marrying again this property passed 
away for ever from the Bellott family. 

In 1698 he is borrowing on Bochym £1,600, and 
the mortgage ten years later was not paid off, for 
it was then transferred from Sir William Dolben, of 
the Inner Temple, to William Pearce, of Tregoning, 
in the parish of Breage. 

How the estate and others, which belonged to 



60 BOCHYM. 

Renatus Bellot, dwindled and melted away does 
not transpire. Likely enough the task of embellish- 
ing the old mansion, and laying out the terraces 
and gardens, was an expensive work ; but there must 
have been something more than this to make up 
the "riotous living and excess" of the historian. 
If, as is said, he never paid his father's bequests 
or his own debts, and executed mortgage after mort- 
gage to the very last, it is not difficult to under- 
stand ; certain it is that in his will he directs that 
all his possessions in Devon and Cornwall are to 
be sold for the payment of his debts and his own 
and father's legacies. 

A very few words tell the remainder of the family 
story. The son Renatus died soon after the father. 
In 171 1, Sep. 16, died Loveday Bellott, at Exeter, 
of small pox; which disease, in 1717, carried off 
her four sisters, and in 17 19 the last remaining 
Bridget fell a victim too. 

Thus the hundred years are up, and the old 
mansion passed away into the hands of one after 
another till, for a century more, its history is 
little more than a mere list of names and purchase 
deeds. 

From the Bellotts Bochym passed to the Robin- 
son family, one of whom was M.P. for Helston in 
1 661. 



BOCHYM. 6 1 

Of the owners of Bochym, George Robinson, 
Esq., of Nansloe, there is a quaint story told by 
Hals, which is worth the attention of the curious, 
his death and the moral thereof, form a thrilling 
passage of romance. His son and successor Ed- 
mund parted with the Bochym property, in 1725, 
to Thomas Fonnereau, Esq., for £25,500. He 
is famous as having built the lighthouses on 
the Lizard head in 1762* Having resided at Bo- 
chym he, no doubt, carefully superintended the 
construction in person ; at any rate, he was near 
enough at hand to do so. 1780, however, brought 
other changes to the old Cornish manor, when it 
came into the possession of Mr. Cristopher Wallis, 
who again sold it to Sir Harry Trelawney, Bart., 
in 1785. 

Under the reign of the baronet, Bochym lost 
nothing of its olden splendour we may believe ; 

* Apropos of those Lizard lights a singular story is cur- 
rent among the country folk. In the days before 1762 
huge coal fires were lighted on the headland, -which were 
kept constantly going, and a blaze created by the action 
of huge bellows like those of a blacksmith's forge. It is re- 
corded in the "Week at the Lizard" (p. 11), that on one 
occasion, during war time, the fire was allowed to sink so low 
that it was scarcely visible ; a government steamer passing 
at the time fired at the light, and the slumbering watchman 
was effectually aroused by the cannon ball, while happily no 
damage was done. 



62 BOCHYM. 

in spite of the eccentricities of Sir Harry himself, 
which find a record in the pages of more than 
one historian of Cornwall, His son, William Lewis 
Salisbury Trelawney, to whom the property came 
(as appears from a mortgage deed in 1808), again, 
parted with it to a Mr. Graham, of Penquoit, of 
whom the remarkable record remains, that the 
ancient tapestry hanging in Bochym was by him 
taken down to wrap his furniture in for removal* 

From him it came to Mr. Thomas Hartley, who, 
in his thirteen years' possession of the estate, 
allowed things to run on their natural course of 
decay ; and this, added to the fact that he let it 
to a tenant farmer — who, of course, took the 
farmer's usual care of all the ancient relics about, 
accounts for the dilapidated state of the mansion 
when purchased by Stephen Davey, Esq., in 1825. 

Under the hands of the Davey family Bochym 
has become once more a gentleman's mansion ; the 
western wing of the building, which is also the an- 
cient portion, has been restored, and considerable 
additions made to the main building, in accordance 
with some ancient plans and elevations which were 
found among the papers and archives of Bochym. 

* Mr. Jessop, in his able paper, falls into a mistake in 
making Mr. Hartely the culprit who removed the tapestry ; it 
was Graham, of Penquoit. 



BOCHYM. 6$ 

A charming conservatory now forms a second wing to 
the building, and the old terraces and gardens, with 
the bowling green — which, perchance, were the hobby 
of Renatus Bellott — have once more put on the ap- 
pearance they had in the days of William and 
Mary, while it is quite a pride of their present pos- 
sessor, Richard Davey, Esq., that, go where you 
will, there is never a leaf out of place. 

Certainly it is as charming a landscape as one 
could wish ; all the more charming because in such 
striking contrast to the rest of the district round. 
The wild miniature woods, the babbling brook, 
and rush of the water over the rocks, which have 
been placed to dam its course ; the soughing 
of the distant sea, and the cry of the Bochym 
hounds in their kennel, as some disturbing tra- 
veller passes the road close by at the entrance 
lodge, form a combination of sight and sound 
little to be expected in the far west of our rocky 
peninsula. 

And inside the mansion the restoration has been 
carried out with an unsparing hand ; alas ! that the 
tapestry and stained glass, of which the chroniclers 
speak,* should have disappeared. 

* C. S. Gilbert (in 1814), " Bochym contains some frag- 
ments of tapestry, and also some fine specimens of painted 
<rlass." 



64 BOCHYM. 

The ancient tapestry, removed by Graham, of 
Penquoit, is said to have been very fine and beau- 
tiful ; and tradition has it, that it was the work of 
Wynslade's wife and daughters, to represent his 
leave-taking and departure. 

The stained glass survived until Mr. Hartley's 
time ; it was given by him to Mr. Grylls, at S. 
Neots, and so precious were such relics of the 
past deemed in those days that it was carried 
loose in a frail (basket) by a man on horseback 
into Helston ; the natural result being that, at the 
end of the journey, there were no fragments left 
large enough to be worth preserving ! ! ! 

Had the glass and tapestry fallen into the hands 
of such a friend to ancient relics as the present 
owner, Richard Davey, Esq., has proved himself to 
be, we should not have had to mourn their loss 
and destruction. 

The oak room, in which is the sliding panel and 
secret staircase in the thickness of the wall, is lined 
with wainscot, and there is a tradition that an under- 
ground passage exists from here which emerges at 
Mullion Cove, one and a half mile distant. 

Although there is every reason for believing 
this to be a gentle fiction, it is, nevertheless, true 
that there is still existing the secret staircase, and 
also a ladder, by means of which through an 



BOCHYM. . 65 

aperture any part of the roof can easily be 
reached. 

There was once a chapel at " Bosham," dedi- 
cated to S. Mary, and the remnants of its ruins 
are in a plot of ground called Clahar, which is 
close to the house, and was undoubtedly once a 
portion of the estate. Not many yards from the 
front entrance are still to be seen the stone stiles 
which led across the field to the chapel from the 
neighbouring group of cottages at Cross Lanes, 
stiles which are remarkable alike for their shape, 
solidity, and antiquity. 



ANCIENT STONE IMPLEMENTS FOUND 
AT BOCHYM. 



How charming is Divine antiquitiy ! 
Not harsh, and crabbed, as dull fools suppose, 
But musical, as is Apollo's lute, 
And a perpetual feast of nectared sweets, 
Where no crude surfeit reigns. — Milton's Comus. 



i,HE old mansion and estate just described 
has a further interest for the archaeologist 
and the antiquary, for in the most unro- 
mantic of all places on this ancient manor, 
a stone quarry, we have brought to the light of day 
memorials of the Celtic race that takes us back far 
beyond the date of any written record of Bochym. 
There existed, in 1869, a few hundred yards 
from the house, a high wall of rock, whether the 
result of art or nature, is by no means certain. 
By the side of it ran, in summer, a babbling 
brook ; in winter, a roaring torrent. No insignifi- 
cant feature in the landscape at any time, although 
not dignified with a name, as is its neighbour the 
Ribble. 





U>< 






BESTS WKBM m*mmi- 



CELTIC REMAINS 6/ 

On this spot, in the year named, the rock was 
being quarried ; and shortly after commencing the 
work, the men employed discovered, lying on a 
ledge of the stone, in a hole, the four celts (Nos. 
I to 4) here described. They are of ironstone 
or greenstone, not of equal coarseness. No. 1, is 
apparently much softer than the others, to judge 
by the manner in which it is honeycombed with 
age or exposure ; while none of them bear the 
traces of any amount of wear. No. 3, is of a very 
peculiar type, being rounded off or bent at the 
point in a mode rather more than accidental ; and it 
is in a state of brilliant preservation, having quite 
an edge at its broader end, without a scratch or 
chip. 

Whether celts such as these are the ordinary 
working tools of their ancient owner, and were de- 
posited in a hiding-place for security, or whether 
they were the arms of a warrior, and their close 
proximity to each other the result only of acci- 
dent, must remain yet a problem. We know that 
in the case of bronze implements, hoards of them 
have been found in Norfolk, Kent, and elsewhere 
in these islands ; and the conjecture is more than 
probable, that when in quantities like this, and 
unused, they form a part of the stock in trade of the 
maker. This, too, would seem to account for their 



68 CELTIC REMAINS. 

being sometimes discovered in sets, as it were, and 
of every variety shape and pattern .* 

On the vexed questions, are they arms or 
tools ? the author of the Collectanea Antiqua (i, 
p. 105), no mean authority, writing of those 
discovered at Attleborough, and communicated to 
the Archaeological Association-)- observes : "Some 
of them have been with reason supposed to 
be weapons, affixed to a short wooden handle 
for close warfare. Their connexion with gouges 
and other implements seems to render their ex- 
clusive use for purposes of war at least question- 
able. Found in close company with gouges and 
implements of domestic use, they appear to be 
tools ; when discovered in juxtaposition with a 
sword, further evidence is still required to settle 
the question." 

It is but fair, with regard to the question of their 
use, to mention the theory, held by Mr. Davey him- 
self, that they were probably used for domestic pur- 
poses, and in particular that of skinning animals and 
cutting up food ; and this is rather supported than 
otherwise by what we know of the primitive usages 
of rude and uncivilised nations. Even the Esqui- 

* Archczologia, vol. xv., p. 118 ; Journal^ British Archaeo- 
logical Association, i, pp. 51, 59 ; ii, pp. 9, 58. 
+ Journal^ i., p. 58. 



CELTIC REMAINS. 69 

maux use tools of bone, horn, and wood, to tear 
off the fat from the surface of skins intended for 
clothing.* If so, why not these stone implements 
by the early races of Cornwall to skin the animal 
in hand, or hew it in pieces after it was skinned ? 
Implements such as these were in use all over this 
island, as we discover, and in many cases were 
sharp enough to be used as chisels. Of this type 
No. 3 seems to have been one. 

No. 5, is an implement of a very different kind, 
of a softer stone, — an axe- head of an ordinary type, 
but broken at the end ; the interest attaching to 
it being mainly that it was found in a heap of 
stones from an adjoining field, which were gathered 
up for the purpose of mending the road. 

In a similar way, the curious turned boss (No. 7) 
escaped destruction, only after greater peril, for it 
was discovered uninjured upon the roadway, in 
the midst of the newly laid metal, at least six 
months after the road had been repaired and the 
stones laid down. The use to which this stone 
was put must, it is feared, remain a matter of 
mere conjecture. Without laying down any theory 
upon the subject, I will only mention their ancient 
use in games, as a " signum" in taking an oath 
(Roman), and it is at least noticeable that while 
there is no stone to be had of like character 
* Arch. Journal, xxviii., p. 44. 



70 CELTIC REMAINS. 

with the material of the boss, within miles of 
Bochym, there is at no great distance (six miles) 
across country, a Roman camp, and Roman coins, 
hereafter described, were turned up within four 
miles of the spot. 

Fig. 6 carries us back to ancient days indeed. It 
is a round quoit-shaped stone of the hard green 
serpentine rock found in the neighbourhood. A 
fanciful imagination has suggested that it is a 
quoit, and as such used in the early days of its 
manufacture ; yet there can be little doubt that 
it may lay claim to greater antiquity, and a more 
useful purpose, as an ancient muller for grinding tin. 

We must go to the Phoenicians and Diodorus 
Siculus ; for not far from the place of the discovery 
lies the valley of the Looe, with its far-famed Looe- 
pool, and its bar of sand. 

To this day the tin stream works flourish on the 
hill side, and their refuse runs down into the Looe, 
to discolour its waters and poison its fish, and there, 
on either side of the valley, in the old workings, may 
be still picked up mullcrs of like material with this, 
and still may be seen the flat blocks that formed 
the nether mill stone, and upon which the tin was 
pulverised in those primitive times.* 

* Two mullers exactly like this one were found in a 
barrow at Bolleit, and are described by Mr. Edwards in his 
" Land's End District," p. 30. 



CELTIC REMAINS. 7 1 

A writer in one of the local papers,* a few years 
ago, gives a very lucid account of the remains of 
the ancient tin workings in the Looe Pool valley. 

As might be expected from the extent and rich- 
ness of the alluvium, and the ease with which it 
may be wrought, numerous traces are discoverable 
of the existence of tin works in this valley from a 
very remote date. 

Along its course are the sites of three or four 
ancient entrenchments, dignified with the name of 
castles, though probably at no time more important 
than earthworks, one of which, at the entrance of 
Lowertown, " Castle Teen Urn," still exhibits an 
isolated hillock, surrounded by a circular encamp- 
ment, in a very perfect condition. From their 
situation it is difficult to conceive that they could 
be other than stations to receive the metallic 
product of the country, on its transit to the place 
of embarkation. The hill side, at the southern ex- 
tremity of the bar, is deeply marked with the re- 
mains of works apparently of a similar character, 
in close proximity to the banks of the lake itself, 
and curious oven-like structures were explored 
by Mr. J. J. Rogers some years since, for which no 



* Vestiges of Ancient Tin Workings in the Looe Valley, 
Cornwall Gazette, Sept. 19, 1867. 



72 CELTIC REMAINS. 

assignable object was apparent, except in connexion 
with a station permanently occupied in the way- 
supposed. 

Within a short distance of " Castle Teen Urn," 
a few feet beneath the surface, in the centre of the 
village of Lowertown, are accumulations of slag 
and carbonaceous matter, which, by their yielding 
on the vanning shovel particles of metallic tin, are 
evidently the remains of smelting operations. 

Frequently, about this place, boulders of hard 
stone are found with the surfaces indented in deep 
hollows, where the tinstone had been rudely pounded 
into powder, preparatory to its reduction in the fur- 
nace. 

At Trelubbus, a short distance up the valley, a 
portion of a machine of a much more effective de- 
scription for the same purpose (very like that 
at Scilly described below) was discovered by Mr. 
John Christopher about the year 1852, beneath the 
foundation of an old stamps' wall, which seemingly 
had been built centuries before. This relic consists 
of a granite stone, about three feet diameter, the 
circumference very roughly shaped into a circular 
form, and perforated in the centre by a hole about 
five inches diameter. The lower side is slightly 
conical, and directly beneath the hole in the centre a 
clutch is roughly cut, so as to admit of its being turned 



CELTIC REMAINS. 73 

round by an upright spindle. The whole machine 
must have resembled a large quern, or ancient corn 
mill, and have been set in motion by water power. 
The hardness of the material treated has deeply 
marked the grinding surface with concentric grooves. 
The weight of the stone (which formed the upper 
portion of the mill) is about six cwt. This is no 
doubt a good illustration of the means used to pul- 
verise tin ore previous to the introduction of the 
present form of stamps, which is said to have been 
invented by some of the Godolphin family in the 
1 6th century. 

If it be true what Camden says of the Mene&g 
of the Phoenicians, that in discovering it they dis- 
covered a world of tin, and secured it to them- 
selves, may it not have been also that the Phoeni- 
cians of whom Diodorus Siculus writes, sailed with 
their vessels up the then open harbour of the Looe, 
and anchoring at the head of the creek in the Cober 
river, received there their consignment of the me- 
tallic produce of the ancient Danmonii ? Be this as 
it may, there still stands, looking down upon the 
vale, — joining it, one might say, by St. John's gate- 
way, — one of the most ancient of the old " coyn- 
age towns," the early charter of which (one of King 
John's in 1201) grants privileges to the town, and 
confirms former ones, chiefly in connexion with and 



74 CELTIC REMAINS. 

on account of the flourishing mills and stream- 
works of tin, in the valley of the Cober below. 

That the ancient Britons did use mullers, both 
large and small, to grind their fragments of rock 
and tin-ore, seems evident from an elaborate de- 
scription of one in the Scilly Islands, the re- 
mains of which are still visible. The whole pas- 
sage is worth transcribing, as given by Hitchins 
(vol i, 249) : " Upon the top of the hill is a natu- 
ral rock, about nine inches above the surface of 
the ground, with a round hole in its centre, eight 
inches in diameter, supposed for an upright post 
to work round in ; and at the distance of two feet 
from this hole in the centre is a gutter cut round 
in the rock, out of the solid stone, fourteen inches 
wide, and nearly a foot deep, wherein a round 
stone, four feet in diameter and nine inches thick, 
did go round upon its edge, like a tanner's bark- 
mill, which is worked by a horse. The round 
stone has a round hole through its centre, about 
eight inches in diameter. This is supposed to have 
been a mill for pulverising the tin-ore in ancient 
times, and worked either by men or a horse, before 
stamping mills were known of the present con- 
struction." 

Before leaving the group of celts there is another 
to be described, a specimen of more advanced work- 



CELTIC REMAINS. 75 

manship. It is an unfinished hammer-head of 
greenstone, weighing one pound twelve ounces and 
three-quarters, pointed at the end, and the lower 
edge quite flat, while the upper is rounded off. The 
entire face of one side is ground down, probably by 
wear, to a plane inclined sideways from that of the 
original surface. Nearly in the centre of each side 
a hole has been commenced for the insertion of a 
handle ; but the hole remains unfinished, and the 
perforation is incomplete. This was found in 1871, 
in a croft at Burnow, a farm in this parish, the pro- 
perty of John Jope Rogers, Esq., of Penrose. It 
is of a very rare type, and a similar example is 
shown in the Prehistoric and Ethnographical Series 
of Photographs issued by permission of the Trus- 
tees of the British Museum, PI. 16, No. 3. 

It would appear that of these celts discovered 
in this part of the county, there are two distinct 
varieties. The first, celts perfectly plain, as those 
of the Bochym find, and which would seem to 
have been attached to their handle (if at all) much 
in the same way that our country smiths still use 
their chisels for cutting hot iron, with a hazel or 
other stick twisted round the implement, and an 
iron ring or thong passed over the ends of the 
stick to make the grip firm. 

The second type would be those celts hav- 



y6 CELTIC REMAINS. 

ing a hole in the centre through which the han- 
dle was passed, just as at present. A beauti- 
ful specimen of this kind, unfortunately broken in 
half, is in the possession of J. J. Rogers, Esq. It 
was found at Sithney, near Helston, and was exhi- 
bited by the writer at the March meeting of the 
Brit. Archaeolog. Association, together with the 
other Cornish antiquities here described. 

Midway between these perfect specimens comes 
the incomplete and unfinished implement as de- 
scribed above, which would appear to have passed 
out of the maker's hands, and to have been lost, 
before it has been brought to a finish. We can 
make no other conjecture, for it would be beside 
all reason to suppose that the perforation was not 
intended to be complete. The cavity on either 
side, as at present, has no meaning ; but when the 
hole is carried through, its use is immediately ap- 
parent. 

Of bronze implements I know of none recently 
found in this neighbourhood, with the exception of 
one, which was discovered, not indeed in Cury, 
but close to it, at Penvores, in the adjoining parish 
of Mawgan, where a labouring man in 1871, while 
working in a clay pit, three feet below the surface, 
came upon an almost unique specimen of a double- 
looped palstave of bronze, weighing fourteen ounces 



CELTIC REMAINS. J? 

and a quarter, and in the very highest state of pre- 
servation. It was presented by Mr. Rogers to the 
British Museum, which also contains the only other 
known specimen found in England, and is figured 
in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, 
Second Series, vol v, No. vii, Plate I, fig. 2. 

Carew, in his survey, hazards a curious theory as 
to the origin of implements like these, and the pas- 
sage is worth referring to, though couched in the 
quaintest language. 

He remarks — "The Cornish Tynners hold a strong 
imagination, that in the withdrawing of Noah's 
floud to the sea, the same tooke his course from east 
to west, violently breaking vp, and forcibly carry- 
ing with it, the earth, trees, and rocks, which lay 
any thing loosely, neere the vpper face of the 
ground. To confirme the likelihood of which sup- 
posed truth, they doe many times digge vp whole 
and huge timber trees, which they conceiue at that 
deluge to haue beene ouerturned and whelmed ; 
but whether then, or sithence, probable it is, that 
some such cause produced this effect* Hence it 
cometh that albeit the Tynne lay couched at first 
in certain strakes amongst the rockes, like a tree, 

* Branches, nuts, and stems of trees have been found 
close to Newlyn and Penzance, the submerged forest of 
Mounts Bay. 



?8 CELTIC REMAINS. 

or the vcines in a man's bodie, from the depth 
whereof the maine load, spreadeth out his branches, 
vntill they approach the open ayre, yet they haue 
now two kinds of Tynne works, stream and load ; 
for (say they) the aforemencioned floud, carried 
together with the moued rockes and earth, so much 
of the load as was inclosed therein, and at the 
asswaging, left the same scattered here and there 
in the vallies and ryuers where it passed ; which 
being sought and digged, is called streamworke ; 
under this title, they comprise also the Moore workes, 
growing from the like occasion. 

" They maintaine these workes, to haue beene 
verie ancient, and first wrought by the Iewes with 
pickaxes of Holme, Boxe, & harts-horne ; they 
prooue this by the name of those places yet en- 
during, to wit Attall Sarazin, in English, the " Iewes 
off cast," and by those tooles daily found amongst 
the rubble of such workes. And it may well be 
that as Akornes made good bread, before Ceres 
taught the vse of corne ; and sharp stones serued 
the Indians for kniues, vntil the Spaniards brought 
them iron ; so in the infancie of knowledge, these poor 
instruments for want of better did supplie a turne. 
There are also taken vp in such workes, certaine 
little tooles heads of Brasse, which some terme 



CELTIC REMAINS. 79 

Thunder-axes, but they make small shew of any 
profitable vse. 

" Neither were the Romanes ignorant of this trade, 
as may appear by a brasse coyne of Domitian's 
found in one of these workes, and fallen into my 
hands : and perhaps vnder one of those Flauians, 
the Iewish workmen made here their first arriuall." 

Time, which discovers most things, will perhaps, 
in due course, shed a flood of light upon these, 
and enable a more enlightened age to rightly read 
and interpret such relics of byegone days. 



BONYTHON. 

Once more, and yet once more, 
I gave unto my harp a dark woven lay ; 

I heard the waters roar, 
I heard the flood of ages pass away. 

O thou stern spirit, who dost dwell 

In thine eternal cell, 
Noting, grey chronicler ! the silent years ; 

I saw thee rise — I saw the scroll complet», 

Thou spak'st, and at thy feet 
The universe gave way. 

Henry Kirk White. 

,HERE is one other old seat, that of 
Bonython, which claims a mention in 
any record of the parish of Cury, 
inasmuch as it was in the possession 
of an ancient family of the same name for so many 
centuries, with a history as full of vicissitudes as 
its near neighbour Bochym ; but the materials for 
its story are far too scant and meagre to render a 
continuous narrative possible. 

The scraps and jottings when one has searched 
all that lay within reach amounts to very little of 
what the whole history would be if it were possible 
to present it to the reader in all its romantic 
truth. 




BONYTHON. 8 1 

As was remarked with regard to Bochym, it 
very frequently occurred in olden time that fami- 
lies took their name from the place where they 
dwelt (and not vice versa, as is the prevalent but 
mistaken notion). " The Cornish," says Carew, 
" entitle one another with his owne and his father's 
Christian name, and conclude with the place of his 
dwelling ;" and we may take it the custom of add- 
ing de was common at a very early period. Thus 
the de Bochyms and Thomas de Bonython. 

Many gentlemen changed their names on the 
removal to a new home, an instance occurring in 
this very family, the Bonithons taking to Carclew, 
name and place. Tonkin says that the custom of 
assuming the names of theirhabitationand changing 
it on the next removal was quite left off (1736), 
though he could instance some who had done so 
within one hundred years. 

In the MSS. of Hals is this brief sentence : — 

" Bonython is in this parish ; from whence was 

denominated an ancient family of gentlemen sur- 

named deBonithon,whofor many descents flourished 

here in good reputation till the reign of Queen 

Anne, at which time Charles Bonython, Esq., 

serjeant-at-law, sold this barton to one Carpenter, 

now in possession thereof.* 

* It was not Charles, but his son Richard, who sold Bony- 
thon to the Carpenters. See p. 84. G 



82 BONYTHON. 

C. S. Gilbert, who is a pretty reliable authority, 
narrates that the family became extinct in the 
elder line on the death of Richard Bonithon in the 
early part of the last century. 

One of the younger branches of the family, and 
the most wealthy, settled at Carclew in the reign 
of Henry IV., having made a marriage with one of 
the co-heiresses of Daungers, and there Richard 
Bonithon died July 31, 1697, leaving the estates to 
an only daughter, through whom in marriage they 
passed away for ever from the family.* 

It is said a younger branch of the Bonithons of 
Carclew were till lately residing at S. Austell. 

In the 1 6th and 17th centuries they were a 
powerful family. Tonkin mentions one as a man 
of great repute in the reign of Henry V. ; and a 
search among county and other records establishes 
the fact that the Bonithons figured conspicuously 
in the political events which occurred in the trou- 
blesome days of the Stuart dynasty. 

Among the State papers of James I. it is recorded 
that a grant was made to Nicholas Fortesque and 
Michael Vivian of £60 out of the goods of John 
Bonithon, deceased, which were forfeited by out- 
lawry, his death having occurred just prior to the 
grant, viz., June, 1605. 

* The arms of the family are Arg., a chevron between 
thiee fleurs-de-lis, sable. 



BONYTHON. 8$ 

In 1603, an d again in 1604, the Comptrollership 
of the Stannaries in Cornwall and Devon was 
granted to Richard Bonithon, and again in 1605 
Richard Bonithon was appointed keeper of the 
gaol at Lostwithiel. A little later — in the 17th 
year of James I., A.D. 1619 — Reskymer Bonython 
was Sheriff of Cornwall* 

Polwhele mentions a Thomas Bonython who was 
a captain in the Low Country wars.f 

And in 1625 a John Bonithon was captain and 
serjeant-major of a regiment levied for the King in 
Devonshire. 

A Richard Bonython, doubtless one of this 
Cornish family, was one of the first emigrants 
to America, and settled at Saco, where he died in 
1650.J His son John died about i684.§ 

Thomes Bonython, of Bonython, married Frances, 
the daughter of Sir John Parker, of London, and by 
this marriage there was a son, John Bonython, who 
married Ann, daughter of Hugh Trevanion, Esq., 
of Trelogan. 

* Gilbert's Parochial History, p. 303. 

f Polwhele, Civil and Military Hist., p. 87. 

% John Farmer's Genealogical Register of the First Set- 
tlers of New England (1829), pp. 32, 36, 337. J. B. Felt's 
Ecclesiastical Hist, of New Eng. (1855), I., 246, 396. 
G. Folsom's Hist, of Saco and Biddeford, 1830. 

§ Folsom's Hist, of Saco and Biddeford, p. 52 et seq. 



84 BONYTHON. 

This John Bonython was the father of the cele- 
brated Serjeant Charles Bonython, who put an 
end to himself in a fit of madness. 

In " Woolrych's Serjeants " there is a memoir 
of this Mr. Serjeant Bonython, who was steward of 
the Courts at Westminster from 1683 to 1705. At 
that time this was a lucrative post ; but in the 
Sloane MSS. occurs the following paragraph ex- 
tracted from a news-letter of the day, Feb. 18, 
1687: — " Mr. Bonithon, steward for Westminster, 
has been displaced in favour of Mr. Owen." 

He, Charles Bonython, married Mary, the 
daughter of — Livesay, Esq., of Livesay, in 
Lincolnshire, by whom he had two sons, Richard 
and John, and a daughter. 

He died by his own hand, of which event this 
brief record is left : — Boynthon " shot himself 
through the body with a pistoll."* 

Richard, the eldest son, was also called to the 
bar ; but he must have inherited his father's mad- 
ness, for he, having first sold portions of his estate 
in parcels — amongst others this barton — to one 
Humphrey Carpenter, jun., to complete the tragedy, 
first set fire to his chambers in Lincoln's Inn, and 
burned his papers, then stabbed himself with his 

* Narcissus LuttrelPs Brief Historical Relation of State 
Affairs, I., 255 ; V., 545, 555- 



BONYTHON. 85 

sword, and not effecting his deadly purpose imme- 
diately, threw himself out of window and killed 
himself on the spot. This was in 1720. 

John Bonython, the second son, was educated at 
King's Coll., Cambridge, and became an eminent 
physician at Bristol, but died before Richard, 
probably a Latin poem with his name appended, 
which appeared in a volume published by some 
Cambridge undergraduates in 17 14, was his. 

The title of the work from which these verses 
were taken is — " Maestissimae ac Laetissimae Aca- 
demiae Cantabrigiensis Carmina funebria et trium- 
phalia. Illis . . . Reginam Annam repentina morte 
abreptam deflet. His . . . Regi Georgio Britanni- 
cum Solium optimis auspiciis ascendenti gratulatur. 
Cantabrigiae, 17 14, fol." 

Quae longum exuerat luctus, nullisque tot annos 
Pressa malis, bello victrix, nee sanguinis ultra 
Prodiga, jam mites sub Pacem miserat hostes ; 
Ecce ! iterum in fletus se maesta Britannia Solvit, 
Et largo lachrymarum humectat flumine terram. 
Scilicet Anna Parens crudelibus occubat umbris, 
Nee dulci afflictos solatur fronde, sed, ante 
Quos vetuit praesens, lachrymarum postulat imbres. 
Sic paulum, dum claustra vias opposta morantur, 
Pax compescit aquas ; at mox, compage soluta, 



86 BONYTHON. 

Turbida majores devolvent sequora fluctus. 

Occidit et terrae, quae jam possederat Orbem, 
Quantula pars est ipsa ? juvant quid Sydera famae 
Terminus, imperii Oceanus ? jacet ecce sepulchro, 
Occidit, et tumulo marcessit gloria mundi. 

Quid ? parva dixi demens includier Urna. ? 
Ingentem non terra capit ; Te lucida Cceli 
Expectant convexa, vias en ! lumine signant. 
Hac Avus, hac Soror, hac Conjux, hac irrita Natus 
Spes Britonum, Sophia hesterna divulsaque morte* 
Clara diu Sophia in Terris, nunc gloria Ccelo, 

Et Proavi Proavorum 

At Tibi debentur laudes, Pia Mater, ademptae 
Quo Tibi, quo regnis Dignus succederet Haeres 
Curasti quae cauta ; Tuae crudelia mortis 
Sic damna instaurans, sic tristia fata rependens. 

Reddas, Phcebe, diem ; dulces quid protrahis horas 
Caesare venturo ? Caesar cur Ipse moratur 
Gaudia nostra ? Adsis, lapsae patriaeque ruinas 
Sarcito ingentis ; revoces in pectora vires 
Quas dolor exhausit ; magnos hie pace Triumphos 
Dediscas ; hie spes praesenti lumine firmes, 
O Pater, O Princeps ; sed te nee Regia Sceptra 
Nee Patriae Te vota juvant, Quern cura remordet, 
Quern rapta. pia cura premit de Matre dolentem, 
Communi de Matre, Tua Britonumque, dolentem ; 



BONYTHON. 8y 

Hinc ergo, hinc lachymas de chara abstersimus 
Anna, 
Ut nova scena suos luctus, sua tempora flendi 
Posceret ? O male mors victrix ! sed fessa, precamur 
Jam tandem desiste ; Tibi quae funere acerbo 
Atra dies Sophiam Patriae, quaeque abstulit Annam, 
Plus dedit Imperii, quam cum per taedia belli 
Stravisti innumeros, Martis spectacula, Gallos ; 
Nee querimur Sophiam, nobis dolor unicus Anna : 
Vivit adhuc Sophia, et partu sua gloria fulget. 

Joh. Bonython, Coll. Regal. Alumn. 

The elder branch of this family became extinct 
with the Richard who was laid in his grave in 1720, 
and the name of Bonithon was thenceforth blotted 
out from the record of human life. Doubtless it 
would have remained in the oblivion to which it 
had already been consigned, but that about 1856^ 
on the death of an ancient maiden lady who resided 
near St. Austell (in all likelihood one of the Carclew 
branch mentioned above) there was discovered 
among her effects a curious old jug of stoneware, 
which had no doubt been " laid up in lavender" for 
years, and preserved in her family as a precious 
heirloom. In all probability she was the last of 
her race ; at all events, her property came into the 
market, and the family relic passed into other hands. 
The cup is of the period of Queen Elizabeth, and it 



88 BONYTHON. 

is said to be unique of its kind ; the date (1598) is 
in raised figures over the central compartment. It 
is of brown stoneware, probably of Dutch manu- 
facture, and on the body of the cup are three oval 
medallions, filled with armorial devices. On the 
central medallion the double imperial eagle is dis- 
played, surmounted by a crown, the shield having 
as supporters on either side coronetted lions in 
arabesque ; the neck-band is ornamented with 
scroll-work in relief, and lower down on the shoul- 
ders of the jug are scroll patterns in compart- 
ments. A label is attached to the handle of the 
flagon with the following inscription : — " Date of 
this jug, 1598. It was used at the coronation ban- 
quet of James I. and VI. of Scotland, by one of the 
Bonithon family, who officiated at the banquet." 

This curious historical relic is in excellent pre- 
servation, and has evidently been carefully treasured 
by its former possessors through a long period, 
during which eleven kings and queens occupied the 
throne of England.* 

From these extracts it would appear that the 
hero of the flagon — most probably a John Bonithon 
and his descendants — were residing periodically in 
London during successive reigns, and that they 

* Gentleman's Magazine for 1868 (pp. 179 — 82), an article, 
" Bonython Flagon." 



BONYTHON. 89 

occupied important official positions under the 
Government from time to time with varied for- 
tunes until the tragical death of the last Richard 
Bonithon in 1720. 

The Bonithon flagon is now in the collection of 
a gentleman at Teignmouth, in Devon, and is much 
admired and appreciated by archaeologists, not only 
on account of its historical interest, but for its truly 
regal appearance and the unique style of its orna- 
mentation ; it is, moreover, untouched by the de- 
stroying hand of time, and the lustre of the glaze 
continues undiminished. 

There is little that is striking about the house at 
Bonython, which is a plain substantial building with 
a granite front, facing the sea, which it overlooks at 
a distance of some two miles by the valleys of 
Poljew and Gunwalloe. 

The view from the front of the house is a most 
extensive one, unusually so, as most of the ancient 
Cornish houses are built quite on the side of the 
hill, or in the valley, as, e.g., Bochym. 

On the lower part of the estate, in a small 
plantation just outside the lodge gates of Bochym, 
is a group of magnificent rocks, the grandeur of 
which strike the beholder at the very first glance. 
One of these — the topmost — is named the Fire, 
or Bonfire Rock, and is no doubt one of the 



90 B0NYTH0N. 

many which in various parts of West Cornwall 
have been, with more or less certainty, predicted 
to have been Druidic in their purposes. 

Both Toland and Borlase write of the fires 
wont to be kindled by the Druids, one season 
for the lighting of which was on the eve of 
November, when the people were compelled to 
rekindle the private fires in the houses from the 
consecrated fires of the Druids, the domestic fire 
in every house having been for that purpose first 
carefully extinguished ; and, curiously enough, this 
is just the season when Cury parish feast is held * 

The Cornish Midsummer fires too will occur 
to those familiar with the county. Hone says of 
them : — (i An immemorial and peculiar custom 
prevails on the sea-coast of the western extremity 
of Cornwall of kindling large bonfires on the eve 
of June 24. . . . I cannot help thinking it the 
remains of an ancient Druidical festival, celebrated 
on Midsummer-day, to implore the friendly in- 
fluence of Heaven on their fields, compounded 
with that of the first of May, when the Druids 
kindled large fires on all their sacred places, and 

* " An Account of S. Just in Penrith, by Rev. John Buller," 
p. 89. The parish feasts of S. Just and S. Corentin being 
held about the same time, the presumption respecting these 
fires put forward by the author holds equally respecting 
Cury. 



BONYTHON. 9 1 

on the tops of their cairns, in honour of Bel, or 
Belinus, the. name by which they distinguished 
the sun, whose revolving course had again clothed 
the earth with beauty, and diffused joy and glad- 
ness through the creation." . . . And this agrees 
with Toland's remarks on these vestiges of ancient 
fire-worship. " These midsummer fires," he says, 
" were to obtain a blessing on the fruits of the 
earth, now becoming ready for gathering, as those 
of the first of May, that they might prosperously 
grow ; and those of the last of October were a 
thanksgiving for finishing their harvest."* 

In the "Land's End District"^ is a graphic 
description of one of these festivals : — 

" It is the immemorial usage in Penzance and 
the neighbouring towns and villages to kindle bon- 
fires and torches on Midsummer-eve ; and on Mid- 
summer-day to hold a fair on Penzance quay, 
where the country folk assemble from the adjoin- 
ing parishes in great numbers to make excursions 
on the water. S. Peter's Eve is distinguished by a 
similar display of bonfires and torches, although 
the ' quay fair ' on S. Peter's-day has been discon- 
tinued upwards of forty years. 

" On these eves a line of tar-barrels, relieved 

* Toland, Vol. I., p. 73. 

t The Land's End District, by R. Edmonds, Penzance. 



92 BONYTHON. 

occasionally by large bonfires, is seen in the centre 
of each of the principal streets of Penzance. On 
either side of this line young men and women pass 
up and down, swinging round their heads heavy 
torches made of large pieces of folded canvass 
steeped in tar, and nailed to the ends of sticks 
between three and four feet long ; the flames of 
some of these almost equal those of the tar-barrels. 
Rows of lighted candles also, when the air is calm, 
are fixed outside the windows or along the sides of 
the streets. , . . On these nights Mount's Bay has 
a most animating appearance, although not equal 
to what was annually witnessed at the beginning 
of the present century, when the whole coast, from 
the Land's End to the Lizard, wherever a town or 
village existed, was lighted up with those stationary 
or moving fires. 

" In the early part of the evening, children may 
be seen wearing wreaths of flowers — a custom in 
all probability originating from the ancient use of 
those ornaments when they danced around the 
fires." 

"At the close of the fireworks in Penzance, a 
great number of persons of both sexes, chiefly from 
the neighbourhood of the quay, used always, until 
within the last few years, to join hand in hand, 
forming a long string, and run through the streets 



BONYTHON. 93 

playing "thread the needle," heedless of the fire- 
works showered upon them, and oftentimes leaping 
over the yet glowing embers. I have on these 
occasions seen boys following one another jump- 
ing through flames higher than themselves. But 
whilst this is now done innocently in every sense 
of the word, we all know that the passing of chil- 
dren through fire was a very common act of 
idolatry ; and the heathen believed that all per- 
sons and all living things submitted to this ordeal 
would be preserved from evil throughout the en- 
suing year. A similar blessing was supposed to 
be imparted to their fields by running around 
them with flaming torches." 

May not the burning rock on the estate of 
Bonython have been connected in past ages with 
some of this ? 



OTHER ANTIQUITIES IN CURY 
AND GUNWALLOE. 



We found the woild barbarian : is it nought 
That where we trod, arts sprang beneath our feet 1 
The tales of virtue and of valour wrought, 
Your children still repeat. 



" Our race is passed away. At dead of night, 
The Master called us : and we did His will. 
Ye, who through widening avenues of light, 
Are gathering knowledge still, 

" Who to the past's accumulated wealth 
Add, day by day, fresh stores that onward roll, 
The large experience that bringeth health 
And wisdom to the soul. 

" Learn yet one thing. He who is wise above, 
Leadeth in every age His children home : 
And He, beholding, something found to love 
Even in Pagan Rome." 

All the Year Round, May 17, 1862. 



HERE are some spots in this land almost 
void of interest either historic or anti- 
quarian. From their isolation, they have 
taken no great share in the events of the 
country, and therefore, when perchance some ob- 
ject which tells of past ages is turned up from 
below the turf, there is little to be said beyond 
the mere description of its form, size, and pur- 




ANTIQUITIES. 95 

pose. Other districts there are so rich in anti- 
quarian remains, that volume after volume has 
been written concerning them ; and again one's 
pen is tied, for all that one can say on a fresh 
discovery, beyond the details of the find, is very 
much what has been said before. 

This is eminently the case of Cornwall. Its 
tumuli, cromlechs, and kistvaens, have been well 
dissected ; the vast number of urns, implements of 
bronze and stone, and hoards of coins, from time 
to time brought to light, and apparently, if we 
may judge from recent researches, still unexhausted 
and inexhaustible, have formed the text for many 
a tome, many a learned disquisition. The folios 
of intelligence that we have concerning its early 
inhabitants and visitants carry us back to the 
days of Phoenicia ; and it is contended that the 
Phoenicians first discovered the Danmonium pro- 
montory, and gave it the name of Meneog or 
Mencdg, which it bears to this very day. This 
ancient Ocrinum, or Danmonium* promontory, of 
Ptolemy presents a rich feast for the archaeolo- 
gist who has the time and freedom to visit and 
examine its multitude of antiquities, whether 

* Ptolemy, ii, 3. AafAvovcov to kcu OKpivov aKpov. — 
Polwhele, Suppl.,p. 52. 



()6 ANTIQUITIES. 

Roman encampments or sepulchral barrows, its 
way-side crosses or moorland cromlechs. From 
time to time, however, it happens some memo- 
rial of past ages is picked up by the labourer, and 
finding its way into the hands of private indi- 
viduals, or, what is still worse, the marine store 
or melting pot of some country dealer, is there 
lost in oblivion. 

Anything, therefore, that rescues ancient relics 
from this fate will be welcomed by the true archaeo- 
logist ; even the few objects of antiquarian interest 
here described, collected by the writer in that far 
end of West Cornwall, the " stony district " of the 
Lizard, may serve to swell the catalogue of those 
remains which will one day help to elucidate the 
history of the past. 

The results of almost all recent explorations, as 
far as the tumuli and sepulchral memorials of West 
Cornwall are concerned, have recently been published 
by Mr. W. C. Borlase, the descendant of the great 
antiquarian, in his Nenice Comubice, and there he 
names the kist vaens of this immediate neighbour- 
hood — few of which, if any, may be considered to 
have contained coins. 

The few coins here described as coming from 
this immediate vicinity are unfortunately poor 
in preservation, and but the worst specimens, 



ANTIQUITIES. 97 

the remnant of a large and what, if it had fallen 
into good hands, must have been a most interest- 
ing find. 

It is doubful whether any part of England has 
yielded more varieties and numbers of ancient 
coins than Cornwall 

The famous Carn-Bre, renowned for its temples 
or fortifications, and the numerous finds of 
implements and coins* thereabouts, Leland's brass 
pot full of Roman money, found at Tredine 
(Treryn), and the Saxon coins from Cornwall, 
which form a part of the beautiful collection of 
Jon n - Rashleigh, Esq., of Menabilly, are instances ; 
while from time to time in past years, within the 
memory of man, coins, singly or in small groups, 
have been picked up at various spots in the Mene- 
age, and of all no record has been taken. 

Of the various kinds of money, Roman is, per- 
haps, the most frequently found ; nor is this to be 
wondered at, when it is remembered how very gene- 
rally specimens of the Roman coinage are scattered 
over the sites of their stations, villages, and camps ; 
while, as a rule, those discovered in such situations 
have been of the more common types, and much 

* Figured in Borlase's Antiquities, PI. xxiii., p. 25, and 
supposed by him to be British imitations of the Greek coins 
of Phillip. 

H 



98 ANTIQUITIES. 

more worn, than those which have been stumbled 
upon in hoards. 

Here, in Cornwall, various speculations have been 
raised as to the use such quantities of Roman copper 
money could have served, whether it was a mer- 
cantile or military purpose that required it, peaceful 
barter at the mines and in the harbours, or the wages 
of the soldiers under arms for the protection or sub- 
jugation of the surrounding territory. 

Be it as it may, we have the record in Lyson's 
Magna Britania (vol iii, ccxxiv) and Borlase's An- 
tiquities (p. 301), of constant finds of Roman coins 
in the very neighbourhood where a century later 
those in my possession were found. 

" They both mention the discovery of 24 gallons 
of Roman money of the reign of Constantine in a 
tenement called Condorah on the Helford river ; 
and, in one of the creeks which run up into the 
parish of Constantine on the other side of the river, 
were found, same date 1735, forty coins, including 
some of Domitian, Trajan, and Faustina junior, in 
brass." 

In this exact spot, or very near to it, a labourer, in 
1 8 17, was ploughing; in the course of his day's 
work he turned up a flat stone with the plough, and 
disclosed a cavity containing an urn of common 
potter's ware ; this he, after the wisdom of his sort, 



ANTIQUITIES. 99 

broke in pieces, in order to examine its contents 
when lo ! there fell out about 200 coins, these he 
brought into the town of Helston and sold, and they 
were gradually dispersed by the buyer, some to one 
friend, some to another; many of the best were given 
to the late Dr. Adam Clarke, and the few that re- 
mained, eight in all, came into my possession in the 
commencement of the present year (1873). 

From the description given to me, which was 
fairly minute, they would appear to have been 
mostly first brass. The urn in which they were 
deposited, was of course lost, its destruction by the 
hands of the ploughman being complete. 

Chygarkie (in Cornish " a fortified house "), the 
field in which they were lying, is only about two 
miles from Gear, which seems to have been a Ro- 
man station. This " Gear " is, no doubt, the origi- 
nal of " Caer" Cornish for camp, and is situated 
on one of the headmost creeks of the Helford river, 
easily accessible by the small ships of that period. 
The camp is in good preservation still, situated 
on a hill, and there appears to be the remains of a 
covered way from it to the creek. 

Adjacent to this is Caervallack (query, is this 
a corruption of caer-vcllliim ?), where there are 
traces of deep fosses and banks ; while in the 
neighbouring parish of St. Kevern, at a place 



100 ANTIQUITIES. 

called " Bahow," are some ancient graves, from 
which were taken relics decidedly pronounced by 
antiquaries to be Roman. There was, we know, 
a Roman road from Dumovaria (Dorchester), 
which, passing through Moridunum (Honiton or 
Seaton), and stretching its length through Isca 
Dumnoniorum (Exeter) to the rich mining district 
of the far west, penetrated to the very extremity 
of Cornwall. It was probably here, at Constan- 
tine then, on the Helford Haven, that the great 
eastern Roman road from Truro terminated. 

There was a camp at Tre-Gear, in Bodmin parish, 
occupied, as recent discoveries prove, by the Ro- 
mans during some period from Vespasian to Tra- 
jan ; and close to Cury we have also a Tre-Gear, 
and in its immediate vicinity a round field enclosed 
by high banks and ditch (very much like a Roman 
camp), outside which the land is more than com- 
monly fertile.* 

Of the coins (eight in number which I have from 
Chygarkie), none are in brilliant condition. I pre- 

* Not fifty years ago the father of the present tenant of this 
farm found, in digging a. hole for a gate-post, some burnt 
ashes and unctuous earth, and there is still extant the half a 
nether millstone, which was found close to this place, whole ; 
but, being carried to the farm-yard, in course of time, no care 
being taken of it, was split in two pieces, the one of which is 
to be seen to this day. 



ANTIQUITIES. 101 

sume they are the poorest specimens of the whole 
find, some of the letters being quite illegible. They 
are as follow : 

FIRST BRASS. 

i. Vespasian, A.D. 69, 79. Corroded, but perfectly legible* 
Reads ; obv., (caes . ve)spasianvs . AVG. ; rev. liber- 

TAS PVBLIC(A). 

2. Antoninus Pius, A.D. 139-161. In fair preservation. Obv. y 

antoninvs . avg . pivs . p . p . tr . p . cos . in. ; rev., s 

ALVS...... 

3. Aurelius (Marcus), afterwards Marcus Antoninus, A.D.. 

161-180. Fair preservation. Obv., AVRELIVS . CAESAR . 
AVG . PI I . F. ; rev., too worn to be legible. 

4. Crispina, wife of Commodus, A.D. 177-183. Good preser- 

vation. Obv., CRISPINA . AVGVSTA ; rev., female figure 
seated. 

5. One of the Julias. The portrait is most like that of Julia 

Domna. 

THIRD BRASS. 

1. Marius (Marcus Aurelius) the emperor for three days, A.D. 

267. Poor. Obv., IMP .CM. AVR . MARIVS , AVG. ; 

rev., worn and indistinct. 

2. Constantine II., son of the first Constantine and Fausta, 

A.D. 316-340. Obv., CONST ANTIN(VS) PO II. 

BILLON. 

I, Herrenius Etruscus (Quintus), son of Decius, A.D. 251. 

Obv., P ET (R) DECIVS . NOB . CES. ; rev. f 

PIETAS . AVGG. 

Perhaps the most ancient, and at the same time 
the most interesting, of the group of antiquities 
here described, is a bead which was found in the 



102 ANTIQUITIES. 

parish of Mawgan in Menedge, at no great dis- 
tance from Chygarkie (" the fortified house "), where 
the coins just described were turned up in 1817. 
It is very similar, almost the exact counterpart of 
one which was found at Gilton in Kent ; the only 
one of its kind among the numerous relics there 
dug up by Mr. Faussett, in 1760, and so beautifully 
figured in the Inventorium Sepulchrale (Plate v, fig. 
2). It would seem to be composed of layers of 
coloured clays upon a hollow tube of glass. In the 
immediate centre of the bead its shape is roughly 
round, about seven-eighths to one inch in diame- 
ter ; but at each end it is tapered off to a hexa- 
gon. The outer layer of colour is blue, which in 
turn is divided from a broad band of red by a thin 
circle of opaque white ; and on the inner surface, 
again, is a white band which covers the tube by 
which the ornament is intended to be strung. It 
is unlike the famous productions of the island of 
Murano. Found among or close to Roman remains, 
the first thought is, can it be Roman ? The cor- 
responding one at Gilton was found in a grave. 
Here, in Mawgan, we have no such graves. Confi- 
dently pronounced by a very good judge to be 
Phoenician, and certainly in make and shape alto- 
gether dissimilar to Roman or Saxon, I hesitate to 
found a theory upon the single specimen before 



ANTIQUITIES. 103 

me. It may be Phoenician or Druidical, or both 
in its origin.* In any case a shrewd guess may be 
given of its use as a personal ornament or a charm, 
probably the latter ; worn by the owner during life, 
and buried with him in the Kentish grave ; but 
lost on the Cornish moorland, to lie unnoticed 
through long periods of succeeding ages, and turned 
up at last by a rustic's boot in this nineteenth cen- 
tury of ours. However unlike the " bedes " of which 
our old poets, Chaucer and Spenser, sing, it may 
yet have served a kindred purpose. Chaucer tells 
of one maiden : 

u A pair of bedes eke she bere 
Upon a lace, all of white thread, 
On which that she her bedes bede." 

And in the time of Herrick the mystic globules 
were potent against the enemy, be it temporal or 
spiritual ; and he says : 

" Bring the holy water hither, 

Let us wash and pray together. 

When our beads are thus united, 

Then the foe will fly affrighted." 

* Beads of like form and make were discovered a short 
time since in Russia, where, in making excavations for a 
brewery at Kiew, the workmen came upon an immense pit, 
containing several thousand skulls, together with bones of 
the different sexes of all ages — probably a place of massacre 
— near to the spot was one tomb containing but one skeleton 
with a heavy iron broadsword, a few beads, a ring, and a cross* 
— Long Ago, p. 21. 



104 ANTIQUITIES. 

If it be as before hinted, that the Phoenicians in 
their visits to the Cassiterides and the adjacent 
country for tin, did sail up the Looe creek and 
Cobra river to the tin depots at the foot of the 
Hellaz Hill, on the south side of Helston, — and to 
the east of that town, on the other border of the 
Lizard promontory, there is a creek (the Helford 
river) once, too, renowned for its stores of tin, on 
the shores of which we have at this day a Roman 
station, with nearly all its parts exceedingly well 
preserved,— then the finding a bead of Phoenician 
work on the site of a Roman camp, and contigu- 
ous to Roman coins, will occasion no great diffi- 
culty. They are independent of each other, the 
one of far more ancient deposit than the other ; and 
what at first sight would appear to be unaccount- 
ably mysterious, really resolves itself into a confir- 
mation and evidence of the truth of history ; that 
both the Phoenicians and the Romans visited the 
peninsula of Danmonium, perhaps for the very same 
purpose, viz., to prosecute the very profitable trade 
in the precious metal for which the whole of that 
region of Magna Britannia was famous. It is cer- 
tainly not a little strange that so few Phoenician 
remains have been brought to light in a country 
which they visited so constantly and uninterruptedly. 
The statement of Richard of Cirencester that iooo 
years B.C. is the date of their first visit, must be 



ANTIQUITIES. 105 

taken aim grano salis ; but any rate, having regard 
to the commercial intercourse of the Phoenician 
merchants with the then inhabitants of Western 
Britain, it is remarkable, not that their influence 
should have extended even to the language of the 
Danmonii (as I cannot but think is evident, though 
I know still a contested point), but that there should 
be so few substantial and tangible memorials of 
these early colonists of our Cornubian shores. 

It is probably to be attributed to the fact that, 
whatever else they did, the Phoenicians did not 
make any permanent settlements on these shores ; 
they visited the few ports for the purpose of trad- 
ing, and their influence with and upon the natives 
depended upon the intercourse resulting from their 
commercial dealings. 

Doubtless the inhabitants of Danmonium would 
be inclined to copy the manners, and to a certain 
extent imitate the mode of life, which their civilized 
visitors introduced, and it is only reasonable to 
suppose that these merchants of the sea brought 
with them from the East many implements and 
articles of use in civilized life which, perfectly novel 
to the ruder dwellers on the Cornubian shores, 
would be prized among them, as our guns and look- 
ing-glasses and beads, have been in later ages 
among the aborigines of the Australian and Ame- 
rican continents. 



106 ANTIQUITIES. 

One such relic of the past is the " Chil " of the 
meneage district. 

Forty years ago — when the illumination of our 
houses was not the easy matter it is now, and lamps 
w r ere few and costly — there was a primitive kind of 
oil lamp used in the farm houses and fishermen's 
dwellings in the Lizard district, which most as- 
suredly must have been formed upon the pattern 
of such lamps as would have been used by the 
Phoenician traders centuries before the Christian 
era. 

Handed down from age to age, family to family, 
father to son, its construction had undergone but 
little modification, and even with the advance of me- 
chanical skill it has retained the simple shape and 
make of primitive times. 

A description of this ancient form of lamp, and 
an engraving of it, was given in a paper by Mr. 
Robert Blight, read before the Royal Institution 
of Cornwall in the present year. 

The chil there described as the workmanship of 
the village blacksmith and carpenter combined, 
sometimes of the cottagers themselves, was formed 
of an upright back about a foot high, with a hori- 
zontal piece fitted to it, resting on two short legs, 
much after the fashion of a chair. A small vessel, 
made of a thin plate of iron, with edges turned 
up, and terminating in a lip or beak, somewhat 



ANTIQUITIES. 107 

the shape of the ordinary Tuscan lamp, was used 
for the oil and wick, and was hooked to the upright 
by a small handle, which contrivance allowed it 
easily to be removed for cleaning or replenishing. 
On the horizontal part, the seat of the chair as it 
were, a small saucer was placed so as to catch any 
oil that might drip from the dish above. 

The wick, which was kindled in the lip or beak, 
was usually of cotton, but retained its ancient 
name Ptirvan — a Celtic word meaning " rushes " — 
in the absence of other material, a wick, called a 
Booba, was used — nothing more than a few strips of 
linen plaited together. 

Mr. Blight remarks, that history attributes the 
invention of the lamp to the Egyptians, and that 
from them it passed to the Greeks and Romans. 
Skulls of animals and sea shells were the earliest and 
simplest forms in which animal fat was kindled by 
means of a wick formed of any vegetable fibre. 

The " chil " of the Menedg, not only resembles in 
shape the skull of animals, but is not at all unlike 
lamps from the excavations of Herculaneum and 
Pompeii, thus strengthening the opinion that such 
articles of domestic use were brought to these shores 
by the early traders, and may be classed among the 
few vestiges that we have of the Phoenicians in 
Cornwall. 



CURY GREAT TREE. 



Even ash, 1 thee do pluck ; 
Hoping thus to meet good luck. 
If no luck I get from thee, 
I shall wish thee on the tree. ' 




,HE ash-tree, if not as venerable as the 
oak, is scarcely less remarkable, and 
has ever held a conspicuous place alike 
in nature, history, and mythology. 
Under its mystic shade the gods held their assem- 
blies, Homer's heroes go forth with weapons made 
of ash, and Dioscorides, the physician, would cure 
the bite of a serpent with the juice of the sacred 
tree. 

Though every village has not its row of pollard 
ash trees like that of Selborne immortalized by 
Gilbert White, through which, when saplings, chil- 
dren were passed for cricks and ricks and all the 
ills that flesh is heir to (in its infancy ?) yet many 
an one has its great tree of some historic interest 
and wholesale superstitions, under whose branches 
generations have passed successively ; the old tree 
looked on while the whole parish has been born 




ENTRENCH ¥£> EL T R.¥ 



• CURY GREAT TREE. 109 

and lived and died, and perchance will still remain 
to see another round of human destinies fulfilled. 

Perhaps the memory of the tree has outlived its 
venerable self, accident or old age has laid it low, 
while its very departure has freshened up the re- 
membrances of the past, and stereotyped them for 
years to come. 

It is thus with Cury. Cury had its great tree, 
till late years the pride of the whole district — in 
former days, perhaps, the consulting chamber of 
the profoundly wise medicine men, when credulous 
mothers brought their children "that wouldn't 
goode" or thrive, to have them drawn through its 
cleft ;* or in later times the trysting-place of rustic 
lovers whose vows were witnessed only by the 
spreading branches of the ancient ash. 
Where the weeping ash-tree droops, 
'Tis the spell'd and gifted hour 

When the faeries range their troops. 
With ear erect, and searching eye, 
We'll wait their jocund company ; 
And mark ourselves the while unseen 
Their revels on the green. — Smedley. 

What a story of romance entwines itself round 

* The passing of children through holes in the earth, 
rocks or trees, once an established rite, is still practised in 
various parts of Cornwall. With us, boils are cured by 
creeping on the hands and knees beneath a bramble which 
has grown into the soil at both ends. Children affected with 



110 CURY GREAT TREE. 

that old hollow tree. Superstition paid veneration 
to it ; smugglers made it a hiding-place ; the 
" fierce sounds of mortal blows " have risen from 
beneath its branches. But the tree has now dis- 
appeared altogether, and all that can be done is to 
gather up its memories — those that are left to us. 

There seems to be no chance of ascertaining now 
whether in its young and flexible days it had been 
cleft, as popular superstition says, but it was a very 
remarkable tree, the largest in the Lizard country, 
or indeed almost in all West Cornwall, and seemed 
to be second only to the great ash of Woburn de- 
scribed by Strutt in the Sylva Britannica. 

It stood on a triangular patch of ground at the 
junction of a lane in Cury, with the Lizard-road, 
at a place called Trease, close to the little brook 
which divides the parish of Cury from that of 
Mawgan.* 



hernia are still passed through a slit in an ash sapling before 
sunrise, fasting ; after which the slit portions are bound up, 
and as they unite so the malady is cured. 

The ash is indeed a tree of many virtues ; venomous rep- 
tiles are never known to rest under its shadow, and a single 
blow from an ash stick is instant death to an adder ; struck 
by a bough of any other tree, the reptile is said to retain 
marks of life until the sun goes down. 

The antipathy of the serpent to the ash is a very old popu- 
lar fallacy. — Pliny, Hist. Micndi, lib. xvi. 

* See illustrations, pp. 109 and frontispiece. A record of 



CURY GREAT TREE. Ill 

Looking at the illustration on page 109, if Cury 
Great Tree were now standing, it would appear 
among the clump of foliage just in advance of the 
horse and cart, ascending the rise from the brook. 
It spread its giant arms over the greater part of 
the open space (nearly 70 feet diameter) between 
the hedgerows, and its girth immediately above 
the ground was 27 feet. The hollow trunk, 5 feet 
up, was 14 feet in circumference, and its internal 
cavity 5 feet, tapering away to 3 feet. 

It once had six spreading limbs springing from 
the trunk, at about 15 feet from the base ; some of 
these, however, were broken off close to the trunk 
before the tree came down. 

The tree attained a considerable reputation as 
being the rendezvous of the lawless " good-for- 
naughts " of those times ; and among the many 
stories told in connection with it is one worth 
giving, which was related by one of the late in- 
habitants of the parish, he having heard it from 
his father, who was a boy when the occurrence 
took place. It is known as 

The Faction Fight at Cury Great Tree. 

On a green knoll in the centre of the inter- 
section of the roads from Helston to the Lizard, 

this wonderful tree is preserved in " Forest Trees of Britain," 

1st ed., 2 vols., London 

recent 1 vol. edition by C. A. Johns. 



112 CURY GREAT TREE. 

and Mawgan to Cury, flourished an ash-tree of 
magnificent dimensions. 

The peculiarity of its position, together with 
its unusual size, in the midst of a district singu- 
larly destitute of trees, rendered it famous through- 
out the surrounding neighbourhood ; and in desig- 
nating a special locality, reference was, and still 
continues to be, made to " Cury Great Tree " as a 
position generally known. During the last fifty 
years the tree has been gradually decaying, and at 
present only a portion of the hollow trunk remains, 
which is rapidly disappearing.* It stands about 
half-way up a gentle rise facing the north ; and in 
passing over the road, the country people speak of 
a dim tradition of a time when the " road ran with 
blood." 

The occasion of this, which is almost forgotten, 
was a faction fight on a large scale between the 
men of the parishes of Wendron and Breage, hap- 
pening about one hundred years since. A wreck 
took place near the Lizard, and the Wendron men 
being nearest, were soon on the spot to appropriate 
whatever flotsam or jetsam might come in their 
way. Returning laden with their spoils, they were 
encountered at the Great Tree by the Breage men, 

* Since this was written the tree is altogether gone, it was 
removed in 1862, the branches having fallen a few years 
previous, in 1857. 



CURY GREAT TREE. 113 

bound on a similar errrnd, and a fight, as a matter 
of course, ensued, which was prolonged till the fol- 
lowing day. 

The contest is said to have been a most terrible 
one, each party being armed with staves. The 
savage nature of the fight may be inferred from 
the following fact : —A Wendron man, named 
Gluyas, having been disabled, was put on the top 
of the roadside hedge, out of the melee, when he 
was seen by a Breage termagant known as " Prudy 
the Wicked," and by her quickly dragged into the 
road, " Prudy " exclaiming " Ef thee artn't ded, I'd 
a make thee !" suiting the action to the word by 
striking Gluyas with her patten-iron until he was 
dead. There is some account of " Prudy 's " having 
been taken before the " Justice," but she does not 
appear to have been punished. These fights be- 
tween parishes were so common in those days that 
any death occurring in the fray was quietly passed 
over as a thing of course and soon forgotten, and, 
adds Mr. Hunt, " So late as thirty years since it 
was unsafe to venture alone through the streets of 
the lower part of Helston after nightfall on a 
market-day owing to the frays of the Breage, Wen- 
dron, and Sithney men. So writes a friend residing 
in Helston."* 

* All this, as far as it goes, is confirmatory of the possible 
truth of the tale told by Jeremiah Jose's grandmother (p. 175.) 



1 14 CURY GREAT TREE. 

The custom of passing the body of a cripple 
through a cleft ash-tree is not essentially Cornish. 
It is common among the Wiltshire peasantry, the 
rites and ceremonies pertaining thereto being iden- 
tical with those of the west. 

The Rev. A. C. Smith, in a paper read before 
the Wiltshire Archaeological Society, adduces a 
case which he had seen, when a boy, of a labourer 
splitting a sapling at early dawn with many rites, 
and after passing the body of a suffering infant 
through, he bound up the tree with moistened clay, 
in the full belief that if the tree recovered the child 
would also, and, vice versa, if the tree died, so 
would the child. 

A curious incident in connection with Cury Great 
Tree* was narrated to me a short time ago, which is 
worth transcribing : — 

Quite fifty years ago John Bartlett, a farmer, 
living on the boundary line which divides Cury 
and Mawgan, found the following in an old 
almanack — 

" Lost where it was dropped on Saturday night 
last, an empty bag with a cheese in it, the bag was 
marked with a D but the letters were worn out : 

* In the frontispiece the brook divides the two parishes, 
and the house on the left was occupied by the late John 
Bartlett, who narrated his own story, the site of Cury Great 
Tree not being more than 160 yards from the spot. 



CURY GREAT TREE. 1 1 5 

the one that lost it never found it wanting till it 
was gone, so if any ore will bring it to him, they 
shall be rewarded for their trouble." 

He copied it out, with " Notice !" in large letters 
at the top, and, by way of a joke, fastened it to 
Cury Great Tree. 

A London tourist of those days passing by, and 
thinking it was the sober, earnest production of the 
Cornishman's mind, carried it off in triumph and 
published it as a specimen of the ignorance of the 
west country folk. 

The farmer, who had for the nonce turned bill- 
sticker, was somewhat startled to read his "Notice!" 
with appropriate comments in the newspaper shortly 
afterwards; 




SAINT WINWALOE* 



How many hearts have here grown cold 
That sleep these mouldering stones among ! 

How many beads have here been told ! 
How many matins here been sung !" 



N the value of benefices towards the Pope's 
Annates made by the Bishops of Lin- 
coln and Winchester, 1294, Ecclesia 
Sancti Winvvalli, i.e., the Church of the 
Holy, Victorious, or Conquering Wallo, in decanatu 
de Kerryer was rated iiijV \\)s iiijW. 

In 1 52 1, Wolsey's Inquisition, it goes by the 
name of the Vicarage of Wynnanton, i.e., the con- 
quering or victorious town, all intended to refer to 
the conquests of King Gunwallo or Dunwallo. 
So says quaint Hals ; but Whitaker has a note on 

* There is a MS. life of this Saint in the Cottonian Library, 
and in the Acta Sanctorum of the Bollandists, 3rd March, 
there are several, one said to have been copied from the 
Chartulary of Landevenac, and to have been the work of a 
monk of that abbey named Gurdistan, A.D. 870. The Rev. 
J. Adams, the author of several papers in the Journal Royal 
Inst. Corn., "Churches of the Cornish Saints," contributed 
at the last meeting in 1874 a sketch of this Saint. 



SAINT WINWALOE. WJ 

this passage in Hals' MSS. in which he asserts the 
much more probable derivation of the name from 
the patron saint, Winwolaus, or Winwaloe, the 
Abbot of Tauracum in Brittany. The G. and W. 
at the beginning of Celtic names often change 
places mysteriously. In Picardy, where this saint 
is much esteemed, Winwaloe is changed intoVigen- 
valey and Walovay ; in Bretagne, into Guignole 
and Vennole ; and othes places into Gunigalois. 

There are two churches in the Lizard district 
dedicated to this Saint, Landewednack and Gun- 
wallo, and the parish feasts of both these places 
are on the same day, March 3. 

Fracan, or Brychan,* father of this saint, was 
nearly related to Cathoun, one of the Kings or 
Princes of Wales, and had by his wife, Gwen, three 

* This Brychan has been confounded by mediaeval writers 
with Brychan of Brecknock ; but there were three Welsh 
chieftains of this name, two in VI. century, one in VII. and 
all had children who founded churches and were reputed 
Saints. The early writers, supposing them all to be children 
of the Brecknock Brychan, attributed to him a too large 
amily for credit. 

In the Chartulary of Landewennec, now in the Library at 
Ouimper, and quoted by Rev. J. Adams, there is a tradition 
that a third breast was vouchsafed to Fracan's wife Gwen, 
wherewith to nourish her third son, so she is called Gwen 
Teirbron, i.e., Gwen with three breasts, and a corbel in an 
old chapel of Gwennoc (her eldest son), ten miles from 
Ouimper, so represents her. 



Il8 SAINT WIN W ALOE. 

sons — Guethenoc, Jacut, and Winwaloe, the last of 
whom they bound themselves by vow to consecrate 
to God from his birth, because he was their third 
son. 

The invasions of the Saxons, and a deadly pesti- 
lence, which soon after overwhelmed his native 
country, obliged him to seek a refuge where he 
might serve God in peace. 

Riwald, with a little band of followers from 
Wales, had before this retired to Armorica, where 
they had been kindly received, and thither Fracan 
went with all his family about the middle of the 
V. century, and settled at a place called after him 
to this day Plou-fragan (Plebs fracani), on the 
banks of the river Gouet, which signifies blood. 

Though the two elder sons were born in Britain, 
Winwaloe, the youngest, and his sister Creiroic, 
were born in Armorica. All the children were 
trained and nurtured in the fear of God ; but it 
was not until he grew through boyhood to youth? 
that his parents placed our Saint Winwaloe in the 
monastery of S. Budoc,* in the Isle of Laurels 



* S. Budoc was an abbot in Great Britain, eminent for 
piety and learning, and, fl>ing from the swords of the Saxons, 
took refuge among his countrymen in Armorica, and in this 
little island assembled several monks and opened a famous 
school for youth. 



SAINT WINWALOE. 1 19 

(Lauriaca), now called Isleverte, or Green Island, 
not far from the Isle of Brehat. 

Under the discipline of this renowned teacher 
he soon became a diligent and distinguished 
scholar. At that time, S. Patrick's glory was 
shining like a bright star in Ireland, and illumi- 
nating the Church of Christ. The legend goes on 
to say that, being anxious to visit the holy father, 
he had obtained permission to go to Ireland with 
some merchants, and that on the eve of the day 
appointed for him to depart, S. Patrick himself 
appeared before him in a vision, crowned with a 
golden diadem, and, with the countenance of an 
angel, informed him that he was sent to give him 
the interview he desired, and bid him, with his 
companions, go elsewhere. 

Thereon the holy Abbot S. Budock appointed 
him superior over eleven monks, and with them he 
travelled the whole of Domnonia, as the northern 
part of Armorica was called, and there, on a desert 
island at the mouth of the river Aven or Chateaulin, 
these wanderers settled themselves in their rude 
huts. On this island there had formerly existed a 
Druidical monument, evidence that in heathen 
times it must have been of some repute. From the 
time, however, of its occupation by these holy re- 
cluses its name hasbeenTibidy,z>., House of Prayers. 



120 SAINT WINWALOE. 

It appears to have been a dreary and desolate 
spot, open to every wind and storm, and after three 
years' patient endurance S. Winwaloe and his com- 
panions betook themselves to the other side of the 
bay, to the little valley of Landevenich, not far 
from Brest. It is said a path was supernaturally 
opened for them through the water, along which 
they are described as walking hand-in-hand, chant- 
ing a song of praise. 

Here they built a monastery, aided by the bene- 
ficence of Grallo, Count of Cornonailles, for he gave 
the land and bore the expense of maintaining the 
monastic brethren * The buildings raised by them 
afterwards grew into the famous Abbey of Landa- 
viniec, sometimes called the Cradle of Christianity 
in Armorica. It is probable that from there the 
Saint migrated into Cornwall (and perhaps Wales), - )* 
and established churches at Landewednack and 
Gunwalloe. 

S. Winwaloe, from the time he left his father's 
house, never wore any other garments but what 
were made of the skins of goats, and under these 
a hair shirt ; day and night, winter and summer, 

* The Chartulary of Landevennac. A MSS. of the XI. 
century is said to contain copies of the original grants. 

+ He is said to be Patron Saint of two or three churches, 
in Wales. 



SAINT WINWALOE. 121 

his clothing was the same. In his monastery 
neither wheat-bread nor wine was used but for 
the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. No other drink 
was allowed to the community but water, which 
was sometimes boiled with a small decoction of 
certain wild herbs. The monks ate only coarse 
barley-bread, boiled herbs, and roots, or barley- 
meal and herbs mixed, except on Saturdays and 
Sundays, on which they were allowed cheese and 
shell-fish, but of these the Saint never tasted him- 
self. His coarse bar ley -bread he always mingled 
with ashes, and their quantity he doubled in Lent, 
though even then it must have been very small, 
only to serve for mortification and an emblem of 
penance. In Lent he took his refreshment only 
twice a week ; his bed was composed of the rough 
bark of trees, or of sand, with a stone for his 
pillow. From the relaxation in the rule of absti- 
nence on Saturdays, it is evident that this monas- 
tic rule, which was the same in substance with 
that received in other British, Scottish, and Irish 
monasteries, was chiefly borrowed from Oriental 
rules, Saturday being a fast-day according to the 
discipline of the Roman Church. This rule was 
observed at Landevenech, till Lewis le Debonnaire, 
for the sake of uniformity, caused that of S. Bene- 
dict to be introduced there in 818. This house 



122 SAINT WINWALOE. 

was adopted into the congregation of St. Maur, 
in 1636. S. Winwaloe was sensible that the spirit 
of prayer is the soul of a religious state, and the 
comfort and support of all those who are en- 
gaged in it. As to himself, his prayer, either 
mental or vocal, was almost continual, and so fer- 
vent, that he seemed to forget that he lived in a 
mortal body. From twenty years of age till his 
death, he never sat in the church, but always 
prayed either kneeling or standing unmoved, in 
the same posture, with his hands lifted up to 
heaven, and his whole exterior bespoke the pro- 
found veneration with which he was penetrated. 
He died on the 3rd of March, about the year 
529, in a very advanced age. His body was 
buried in his own church, which he had built of 
wood, on the spot upon which the abbatial house 
now stands. These relics were translated into the 
new church when it was built, but during the 
ravages of the Normans they were removed to 
several places in France, and at length into 
Flanders. At present the chief portions are pre- 
served at S. Peter's, at Blandinberg, at Ghent, and 
at Montreuil in Lower Picardy, of which he is 
titular patron. His name occurs in the English 
Litany of the seventh age, published by Mabillon. 
He is titular Saint of S. Guingualoe, a Priory at 



SAINT WINWALOE. 1 23 

Chateau du Loir, dependent on Marmontier at 
Tours, and of several churches and parishes in 
France. 

Such is the history of this Saint as gathered 
all available biographies, some of them containing 
the very scantiest materials. 




GUNWALLOE CHURCH. 



" Th<; glory of a building is in its age, and in that deep^sense of 
voicefulness, of stern watching, of mysterious sympathy, nay, even of 
approval or condemnation which we feel in walls that have long been 
washed by the waves of humanity." — J. Ruskin. 



jN the eastern side of Mount's Bay, nestled 
behind a cliff, by which it is protected 
from the raging waves, stands Gunwalloe 
Church, one of the oldest in Cornwall. 
It is believed to have been erected in the XIII. 
century, as a grateful offering of its pious founder, 
who was saved from shipwreck on the spot. So 
says tradition. 

The tower was apparently once much higher 
than now, and is detached from the main building, 
a distance of fourteen feet separating them. A 
local account of the tradition gives as the reason 
that the two sisters, who were saved here from a 
vessel lost on these rocks, and who vowed that if 
spared they would build a church on the spot, 
could not agree as to the site, and they at length 
settled their differences by one of them choosing 






m 

o 
m 




GUN\YALLOE CHURCH. 125 

the place of the tower, and the other the spot 
where the nave and chancel should stand. 

Another tradition says, " the builders intended 
to erect the church on higher ground nearer the 
centre of the parish at Hingey, but as fast as 
materials were brought to the place, they were, by 
some mysterious agency, removed during the night 
to the present site, and here at length the church 
was built, as it was found useless to contend with 
a supernatural power. 

In 1870 the then Vicar of Gunwalloe, writing of 
the building just before its restoration, says : — "All 
traces of the original edifice have probably long 
ago perished, for the oldest portions of the existing 
structure (in 1870), namely, the east and west walls 
of the nave, are considered to have been erected 
about the XIV. century ;" adding, M So close is the 
building to the shore, that the waves have frequently 
broken away the walls o( the churchyard." 

The building at present consists of nave, chancel, 
and north and south aisles, XV century style, the 
open roof of the south aisle containing some very 
good oak carving. 

It must have been at one time a handsome 
edifice. The piers have carvings on the capitals 
of different designs, and once there was doubtless 
a handsome screen existing here, the remains of 



126 GUNWALLOE CHURCH. 

which — a few panelled paintings and carved 
tracery — have been, for preservation, fitted as 
inner doors to each of the entrances. On page 128 
is an illustration of one of these doors, and it will 
be seen immediately that the tracery is very hand- 
some. Each of the panels (four of them in each 
portion of the screen) contains a painting of one of 
the Apostles, each with his appropriate emblem, 
as, e.g., S. Matthew holding the axe ; S. John holds 
a chalice with a serpent issuing from it ; S. James 
the Great with staff and scrip, &c. These, no doubt, 
originally formed the lower part of the rood- 
screen. 

The outer arch of the porch is panelled, and 
there exist the stone fragments of a handsome 
old stone window (for an illustration of this see 
p. 128), far superior in its tracery to any of those 
inserted during the restoration of the church. 

The font is modern — a plain octagon of granite. 
The old bowl, which was formerly lying in the 
churchyard, is now placed inside the church, under 
the west window (see p. 1 28). It is an almost unique 
specimen of the early Norman period, beautifully 
sculptured in Pentewan stone, and bears in bold 
relief the well-known emblem mark of the Trinity 
House, the broad arrow /t\ one of the earliest 
known emblems of the Holy Trinity, and is by no 



GUNWALLOE CHURCH. 12/ 

means the least curious and interesting relic of the 
original church of Winvvaloe. 

Singular in its situation, it is still more curious 
to notice that the tower* and church are built on 
lines at different angles, the tower facing more to 
the southward than the nave and aisles. 

The solid rock out of which the belfry tower is 
cut forms the south, west, and north walls of the 
structure, which is of two stages, and on these three 
sides the masonry of the tower only extends from 
the pyramidal roof to the first stage. 

The old roof having been struck by lightning, 
the present one was placed there in 1868 by the 
lord of the manor and patron of the living. 

There are three bells, apparently of different 
dates, and all more or less out of condition, one 
being cracked. They bear inscriptions : — 

1. Voce mea viva depello cuncta nociva. 
My living voice dispels all hurtful things. 

2. Ihs ois plaudit ut nee tarn sepius audit. 
Jesus is praised, when my voice is heard. 

This has been read also as — 

Omnis sic plaudit qui me tarn scepius audit. 

* There are but six churches in Cornwall that have a cam- 
panile as here, separate from the main building, and these 
are usually situated in a deep valley. The six are S. Feock, 
S. Mylor, Gwennap, Gunwalloe, Lamorran, and Jetland. 



128 GUNWALLOE CHURCH. 

3. Eternis annis resonat campana Joannis 
Let the bell of John for ever resound. 

It is but a year or two since the restoration of 
the church was completed, and if we may judge of 
its former state by the amount of work and money 
expended on it, it must have been almost a 
ruin. 

From the autumn of 1869 to the summer of 1871 
the work was in hand, and in that time, in this 
out-of-the-way corner of the world, owing chiefly 
to the energies of the restoration committee, the 
sum (a very large one when the surroundings 
and population of Gunwalloe are considered) of 
£$47 14s. was raised and expended on the build- 
ing. From an entry in the parish register, the 
details appear to have been — 

" New roof throughout the church, retaining the 
carved oak in the south aisle. The chancel was 
rebuilt and extended eastward two feet. The west 
wall of nave rebuilt and a new window inserted* 
(as also one in chancel). A new window in west 
end of north aisle, and the stone-work of all the 
remaining windows restored, and the church re- 
seated. Paving the passages with Bridgewater 

* Not one of these windows is comparable to the remains 
of the original, the fragments of one of which are now placed 
together against the west wall of the churchyard. See Illus- 
tration, p. 128 — 9. 



GUNWALLOE CHURCH. 1 29 

tiles, which took the place of the previous " lime- 
ash." 

The church was opened with a festival on 5th 
June, 1 87 1, at which the Bishop of the Diocese 
preached to a crowded congregation of some hun- 
dreds, gathered from all parts of West Cornwall to 
this romantic spot by the interest of the occasion, 
for it is seldom that a church whose foundations 
are just above high-water mark, over whose walls 
the salt sea spray dashes summer and winter, is 
considered, in its rocky isolation, of sufficient in- 
terest or worth to make so large an outlay as was 
required here probable, if even possible. 

The registers of Gunwalloe (those remaining) are 
none of them ancient, the earliest being 1716 ; more 
ancient ones, which doubtless existed, have dis- 
appeared. That such old books contained more than 
the mere register of names and dates is well known, 
and many a curious custom or circumstance owes its 
record to the vellum page of the parish register. 

Searching for curious documents of all kinds in 

the old iron parish chest, I came upon a sexton's 

bill for work in connection with the church in days 

gone by, and among other items there appeared — * 

Killing 3 Foxes ... ... 7s. 6d. 

* In the adjoining parish of Mullyon such entries are com- 
mon as late as 1856-7. 

K 



130 GUNWALLOE CHURCH. 

Again — 

Killing i Fox ... ... 2S. 6d. 

What would fox-hunters say to this ? 

In other counties, however, sextons have been 
paid for work quite as unsexton-like as killing the 
noble Reynard ; for in the pages of " Long Ago "* 
is the copy of an entry in an old town's-book at 
Croft, in Lincolnshire, A.D. 1718, as follows: — 





£ 


s. 


d. 


As sexton ... 


02 


10 


00 


For dogs' whipping ... 


00 


07 


06 


Dressing the Church 


00 


02 


00 


For oyle (oil) 


00 


02 


04 


For ringing the bell at 8 and 4 


01 


00 


00 



04 01 10 
Both these specimens pale, however, before the 
charge made in the last century by a London 
sexton on the churchwardens for — 

3 Bushels of Dirt ... ... 4s. 6d. 

Dirt must indeed have been dear in his days ! 

It has been said that there once existed in the 
churchyard a stone with the curious epitaph — 
We shall die all 

Shall die all wee 

Die all we shall 

All we shall die. 



* The discontinuance of thispublication must be a matter 
of great regret to very many lovers of the curious. 



GUNWALLOE CHURCH. 131 

But this is in all probability a mistake, as repeated 
search has been made for it, not only by the writer, 
but by a former Vicar of Gunwalloe, and it could 
nowhere be found, while there is a plate with an 
inscription in the church at Mawgan, the next 
parish, which might be very easily the one referred 
to. 

It is commemorative of the death of Hannibal 
Basset, in 1708-9, and it will be seen that, read up 
and down, or in the ordinary way, they have the 



same meaning : 


: — 






" Shall 


we 


all 


dye? 


Wee 


shall 


dye 


all! 


All 


dye 


shall 


wee ? 


Dye 


all 


wee 


shall ! 



Of crosses, something has been already said in 
connection with that in Cury churchyard. 

Those in Cornwall are justly regarded as among 
the most ancient in England. Thinned by the 
farmer, and the unsparing hand of destructive 
ignorance, their name is still legion, many of them 
retaining, in spite of their weather-beaten aspect 
and antiquity, traces of the skill and art of those 
early ages in the carvings and symbols inscribed 
upon them. 

Many of them are considered of earlier date than 
the conquest of Cornwall by Athelstan in 936, and 



132 GUNWALLOE CHURCH. 

have been even quoted as monuments of Christianity 
previous to the Saxon rule, and to have been sanc- 
tuaries, places of public preaching or prayer, perhaps 
the record of some deed of battle or murder, ever 
pointing the pilgrim to the adjacent chapel and 
oratory or the distant church. 

Such a cross may that of Gunwalloe have been. 
If we may conjecture its position, it was pro- 
bably by the side of the pathway which led 
the wayfarer across the little stream that here 
meanders through the sand-banks, at any rate 
somewhere near the church formerly stood a 
stone cross, which is mentioned by several writers 
as being of very early workmanship. It was thrown 
down long since, and was said, a year or two ago, 
to be lying at the bottom of the stream which 
empties itself into the sea. 

After very diligent inquiry, however, the writer 
found that a stone cross and base had been, in by- 
gone years, taken from Gunwalloe to Penrose, the 
seat of J.J. Rogers, Esq., for safety, and this cross 
has now been placed in the angle of the south-east 
corner of the chancel wall at Gunwalloe, not by 
any means its original position, but at any rate 
where, for the future, it may be safe from mutila- 
tion or destruction. 



WRECKS. 

TRA MOR TRA. BRYTHON.— Taliestn. 
Wide as the sea the British name extends. 



'Tis night ! upon the Cornish coast 

Full loud the breakers roar, 
And helplessly yon gallant barque 

Drifts on the dark lee shore ; 
And quickly now the signal guns 

Boom high above the gale. 
O many a dark-eyed Cornish girl 

At that wild sound grows pale. 

The Life-boat's mann'd, stand clear ahead ! 

There's death upon the gale, 
Cheer up, dear lass, one parting kiss — 

Your lips look cold and pale. 
The Life-boat's mann'd, stand clear ahead ! 

No time to sigh for home. 
Hurrah ! the gallant Life -boat 

Sweeps through the seething foam. 

Bend boldly to your task, brave hearts, 

It is a glorious strife ! 
On ev'ry oar-blade flashing high 

There hangs some loved one's life. 
A cheer so faint comes down the wind, 

All hands we yet may save ; 
Now lift our gallant Life-boat 

Like lightning o'er the wave. 

The Life-Boat. 



[HERE seems to be no reason to doubt 
the story tradition gives us of the found- 
ing of Gunwalloe Church. 
That in days of yore some pious indi- 
vidual clinging to his shattered vessel, as she bumped 




1 34 WRECKS. 

and ground upon the rocks of the Castle headland, 
seeing his comrades one after another swallowed up 
by the seething relentless waves, should register a 
vow that, if saved from death, tJiere, on that very 
spot, would he raise a building to God's honour, is 
far more probable than many of the wild things one 
meets with in the villages of Cornwall, and which 
form the " raison d'etre " of this or that curiosity 
of antiquity. 

Indeed, except in some such way as tradition says 
it is difficult to account for the presence of a church 
in such a place, where the sea spray sprinkles it in 
summer, and in winter storms the waves beat 
full against the churchyard wall, at times making an 
open breach. 

It is almost impossible for those who have never 
witnessed the effects of a winter's gale on our rocky 
coast, to realize what the scene is like, or what the 
magnitude and force of the wild tearing waves will 
do. 

Should a gale be blowing from a southerly point, 
and a vessel be unfortunate enough to get embayed, 
unless the weather moderate, it is almost impossible 
to prevent her loss. 

Happily, since the erection of the Wolf Rock 
Lighthouse off the dangerous corner of the Land's 
End, the number of wrecks between Plymouth 



WRECKS. 135 

and Cape Cornwall has greatly decreased ;* still, 
from time to time in the savage wintry hurricane, 
one and another gets caught, and then we have 
the sad record in the wreckage along shore, and 
the " stranger's " churchyard grave. 

The parish register is a necessarily brief history, 
yet how much of pathos is there in even the four 
words of such entries as the following from — 

fGuNWALLOE Parish Register. 
1808 Joseph Dale.j Son of John Dale, drowned 

* At the very time the author was writing these lines a ves- 
sel was being dashed on the rocks not many hundred yards 
from Gunwalloe Church. 

+ This list only includes such entries during the present 
century (and appended to it are a few extracts as regards 
Mullion, the next parish) ; as, before 1807-8, shipwrecked 
bodies were buried, not in the churchyard, but along the shore 
and cliff wherever found. 

X This John Dale, of Gunwalloe, is immortalized by the 
village poet in some lines on his tombstone, which introduces 
the idea of " bathing," in a way quaintly illustrative of poeti- 
cal liberty of thought — 

When softest pity mov'd his heart 

A brother's life to save, 
Himself, alas ! a victim fell 

To the relentless wave. 
But tho' his mortal part be dead 

His spirit lives above ; 
Where he may bat lie from danger free 

In seas of heavenly love. 



136 WRECKS. 

while endeavouring to rescue one of the 
crew of a Hamburgh vessel wrecked near 
the Looe Bar, in which attempt he succeeded, 
though with the loss of his own life. The vessel 
was bound from Oporto to London with 
wine, and was lost a little to the west of the 
bar. 7 April. 

1809 A body. Found on the shore. 15 Feb. 

1 8 10 Two bodies. Found on the sea shore, sup- 

posed to have been the remains of two sea- 
men of the Clio sloop wrecked on the bar. 

17 and 18 Aug. 

1 8 1 7 Seven bodies. These nine sailors were drowned 
on this coast, seven of whom were washed 
on shore in this parish, one in Sithney, the 
others not found. The vessel was the French 
brig L'Hamecon, Capt. Guillemie, from Mar- 
seilles to Havre de Grace. The seven buried 
in this churchyard could not be recognized ; 
the vessel was stranded on the 23rd. 25 Jan. 

1817 Sailor's body, supposed from his dress to be 
an officer. This body, washed ashore on 25th, 
was supposed to have belonged to a French 
Chasse Maree, lost on the coast (not a soul 
saved), Jan. 24 26 Jan. 

Sailor's body, with three stars on his left 
hand and other marks on his right. Washed 



WRECKS. 137 

on shore, Jan. 26, supposed to have belonged 

to the aforesaid Chasse Maree. 29 Jan. 

Sailor's body very much mangled. Washed 

ashore Feb. 5, supposed to have belonged to 

Chasse Maree 22 Feb. 

Peter Penybrig. Sloop Dove, of Dartmouth, 

bound from Neath to Plymouth, wrecked on 

Gunwalloe Cove, Master Williams, 81 tons, 

laden with culm. 3 July. 

William Gay. Ditto ditto ditto. 3 July 

1819 A body. Washed ashore. 10 Dec. 

1822 Sailor's body very much mangled. Supposed 
to have belonged to the brig Minto, wrecked 
in March in this cove, the only sailor drowned. 

24 April 

1826 Three sailors. These three belonged to the 
Swedish ketch Ida, of Stockholm, Master 
J. C. Holtz, which was stranded near Porth- 
leven. These men were washed overboard 
just before the vessel struck ; there was an- 
other man also drowned belonging to the 
same ship. 8 Feb. 

1829 A man's body. Unknown, washed in under 
Hal Zephron cliff. 1 Mar. 

1833 A sailor. Found drowned, marked on the 
arm with the letters G. F. M., then the figure 
of a heart, and the letters F. P. 24 Nov. 



138 WRECKS. 

1838 Two bodies. Supposed to belong to a vessel 

wrecked at Mullion. y July. 

1840 A female child. Found on the high seas, 

brought ashore at Gunwalloe. 12 June. 

1846 A lad's body. Washed ashore, 6 Oct., very 

much mangled. 7 Oct. 

Three men. Of the crew of the Elizabeth of 

Bergen, in Norway, wrecked at Gunwalloe, 

20 Nov. (fifteen hands saved by a rope).* 

23 Nov. 

Five bodies. Late of the crew of the barque 

Isis, of Russian Finland, laden with corn, 

wrecked at Poljew, on the night of Oct. 10 

(the captain, mate and four seamen, only 

were saved). 14 Oct. 

A body very much mangled. Supposed to 

have belonged to the Isis. 18 Oct. 

1850 Three bodies much mangled. Supposed part 

of the crew of the Windrush schooner, 

wrecked on Poljew side of Gunwalloe Church 

cove, Nov. 29. 10 Dec- 

A body. Washed in Dec. 9 ; one of the crew 

of the above. 16 Dec. 



For his bravery on this occasion Henry Cuttance, a Gun- 
walloe man, was presented with a silver cup by the King of 
Norway. See page 145. 



WRECKS. 139 

1859 Three men. Late of the ship Chincas, ot 
Liverpool, drowned on the Looe Bar. 9 Nov. 

1862 Four bodies, three male and one female, sup- 
posed to be the captain's wife. Late of the 
barque (Auguste) Padre, of Trieste, laden 
with wheat, wrecked at Poljew Cove ; only 
four saved — thirteen in all lost — registered 
also at Mullion. 27 Jan. 

A body. Supposed to have belong to crew 
of above vessel. 24 Feb. 

1862 Brigantine Oscar wrecked ; all saved. 17 Oct. 

1863 A body. 19 June. 

1866 Three bodies. Part of the crew of the San- 

testa, a Brazilian barque, wrecked near the 
fishing cove, Nov. 14, 1865 ; only two out 
of nineteen saved. 2, 10 and 14 Jan. 

1867 A body. Washed ashore at Poljew, supposed 

to be from a Dutch ship Jonkheer Meester 
Van de Wall van Putteshock (sic), Capt. 
Klass Lammerts,from Bataviato Rotterdam, 
laden with coffee and sugar ; wrecked under 
Angrowse Cliff, Mullion, on the morning of 
March 26th, when out of twenty-five souls 
on board crew and passengers, one only was 
saved. Fifteen bodies buried at Mullion. 

11 April. 
1869 A body. Came on shore at Little Cove, sup- 



140 WRECKS. 

posed to have belonged to a party of twenty- 
one men who left the Calcutta Indiaman, in 
the ship's life-boat, when she was abandoned 
at the entrance of the English Channel, Feb. 
8, on her voyage to Bombay with electric 
telegraph cable. The life-boat itself came 
ashore empty at Mullion, Feb. 9. The ship 
was afterwards brought into Plymouth. 

8 May 

1872 Nov. 23. Schooner Lochleven Flower, being 

embayed all hands took the boats, one was 
swamped at sea ; other was mashed as they 
she touched shore at Looe Bar. Every soul 
drowned. The vessel came ashore at Halze- 
phron, and went to pieces immediately. 

1873 Dec. 18. The body of a sailor belonging to 

the Coquette, wrecked at Gunwalloe three 
weeks ago. 
Dec. 27. On the morning of Dec. 27, was 
brought to me a scrap of paper with some 
words almost illegible, scribbled in pencil, 
which had been washed ashore in a bottle at 
Gunwalloe. The writing was at length de- 
ciphered — " Zibriea, on board, but well, fear- 
ful storm, probably the last day." {Signature 
illegible) This paper was at once forwarded 
on to Messrs. Fox and Co., at the Lizard 



WRECKS. 141 

Signal Station, who sent it to Hamburg in 
order that the ship might be identified. 
In the next parish, Mullion, the registers afford 
the same sad evidence of the dangers of the coast 
once it becomes to the mariner a lee shore. 

MULLION. 

1838 Nov. 24. A Neapolitan vessel. lost 15 

1858 Sept. 17. The Mary, of Bridgewater, at Polur- 

rian. lost 1 

The Glencoe came ashore same day at the 

same spot. 

Sept. 22. The Chester schooner foundered 

off here. lost 3 

1862 Jan. 11. The brig Dolland. at the Rill, only 

only one saved ; six drowned. lost 6 

Jan. 22 The Austrian barque Padre, already 

mentioned in Gunwalloe list. lost 13. 

Dec. 10. Schooner Arwenack, of Truro. 

lost 5. 

1867 Jan. 6. Schooner Margaret, at Rock an Enys, 

all but one lost. lost 4. 

Schooner Cherub, wrecked the same day, all 

saved. 

Schooner Ebbw Vale also came on shore the 
same day having been abandoned at her 
anchors. 



142 WRECKS. 

Oct. 21 Barque Achilles. Capt. David Kin- 
near, at Polurrian ; all hands saved by life- 
boat and rocket apparatus. 

1868 Jan. 22. Smack Maria Louisa, of Padstow, 

struck on Mullion Island and sank. lost 3. 

1869 Feb. 9. The boat of the Calcutta, S.S., which 

had been in collision with the barque Emma 
in the Bay of Biscay, found ashore near 
Polurrain, supposed to have struck on Mul- 
lion Island. lost 22. 
April 12. Schooner Remedy, Capt. Bouchar, 
struck near Hugo Down and soon went to 
pieces ; all saved in own boat. 

1 87 1 Feb. 14. French lugger struck on Mullion 
Island, the captain and crew deserted the 
vessel and landed in their own boat at Ky- 
nance ; the vessel soon broke up. 

1873 Mar. 1. Barque Boyne, Wheelan master, 
struck under cliffs on Merries Ledges at 
5.30 — not discovered for an hour or more- 
Three men and a lad saved in their own 
boat. All the others drowned in spite of 
utmost exertions of life-boat crew and rocket 
apparatus. lost 15. 

Most of these wrecks, if not every one of them, 

are remembered by two old inhabitants of the 

parish of Gunwalloe, from whom much valuable 



WRECKS. 143 

information has been received, and their testimony- 
being most thoroughly independent every corrobora- 
tive incident adds weight to the whole. 

The following entry in one of the Gunwalloe 
registers is interesting, and the same particulars 
have been since related to the present writer by Mr. 
Cornish, who is still alive. 

"On Nov. 4, 1870, the Friday before Mullion 
Feast, Mr. Edward Cornish, of this parish (82 years 
of age), related to the then vicar of Gunwalloe how 
he remembered that on this day, sixty-three years 
ago, in 1807, the transport Susan and Rebecca 
was wrecked under Hal-zephron Cliffs. That there 
were about 180 souls on board, all except the crew, 
belonging to the 7th Light Dragoons, who were re- 
turning from the expedition to Buenos Ayres, un- 
der General Whitelock. That 28 horsemen, 10 
sailors, and 3 children were drowned, but the 
women, 8 in number, were saved, and that all might 
have been easily landed but for their reluctance to 
leave the ship, which contained " lots of plunder." 

The ship came on shore about 10 at night and 
went to pieces about 1 1 next day. He remem- 
bered the wreck of the Anson frigate on the Looe 
Bar in the same year, 1807, three days before new 
year's day, being present at both wrecks, the cir- 
cumstances were impressed on his mind. 



144 WRECKS, 

The whole of this is corroborated by Henry 
Cuttance, who relates that the Anson left Fal- 
mouth on Christmas eve ; he saw her then as she 
was being towed out of harbour by her own boats 
— a few days after she lost her maintopmast, became 
disabled, and came ashore at Gunwalloe. 

In the same year the Despatch, Capt. George 
Fenwick, was wrecked at Coverack and only 
seven saved, and a sloop of war was lost on the 
Manacles — only one man being saved — all the bodies 
recovered were buried at St. Keverne. 

He well remembered the wreck of the Susan 
and Rebecca, and the circumstance that forty of 
those then drowned were buried in one grave 
on Hal-zephron Cliffs. Previous to this date it 
was the custom to bury all bodies cast up by 
the sea just where they were found, or in the near- 
est convenient spot ; this, however, was the last 
instance of the kind ; the feeling excited on this 
occasion being so strong, that the late Mr. Davies 
Gilbert obtained an Act of Parliament sanction- 
ing the burial of shipwrecked bodies in conse- 
crated ground, so that since 1 808 the more happy 
practice has been continuously observed of giving 
them a resting place beneath the churchyard turf. 

This old veteran, Cuttance, must have been pre- 
sent at nearly all the wrecks upon the coast foi 



WRECKS. 145 

miles. He remembered them all, and he has the 
honour (of which he is justly proud) of being the 
first Englishman upon whom a personal distinc- 
tion has been conferred by a reigning prince, for 
he possesses a silver cup presented to him by 
Oscar, King of Norway, in recognition of his ser- 
vices and daring in rescuing the survivors of the 
crew from a Norwegian schooner, wrecked in Pol- 
jew in 1846. 

The inscription on the silver tankard reads — 

OSCAR King of Norway, 

to 

Henry Cuttance, 

of 

Gunwalloe, 

for brave and noble Actions on the 

20 Nov. 1846. 



(The vessel was the schooner ' Eliza- 
beth," of Bergen ; came ashore at Poljew 
Cove. The captain, mate, and boatswain, 
were drowned, and it was mainly through 
the exertions of Cuttance the survivors, 
15 number, were saved.) 
Johns, in his Week at the Lizard/' 1 mentions a 

* 1st Eel., 1848, p. 205. 



146 WRECKS. 

wreck which occurred in the same place forty years 
before he wrote, in which instance the yeomanry 
were called in request to prevent depredations, and 
a miner was killed in the scuffle that took place. 

He goes on to relate the story of a wreck, at 
which old Cuttance was the hero, and through whose 
instrumentality mainly the three survivors were 
saved. 

The vessel was a Norwegian, laden with Indian 
corn, and came ashore right on a large rock to the 
westward of the cove. She had no sooner struck 
than she went to pieces. Three of her crew were 
washed by the waves against the base of the cliff, 
and gaining foothold, they managed to scale the 
rocks, and wandered inland in search of help. At 
dawn of day, returning to search for their com- 
rades, those who came back with them, saw some 
dark object in a cleft of the rock, which turned out 
to be three men huddled together, and so exhausted 
as to be incapable of any exertion or effort to save 
themselves. 

By the skill and daring of the villagers, among 
whom the " old smuggler " (as the author of the 
Week at the Lizard calls Cuttance), was conspi- 
cuous, a small cord was at length thrown to them, 
which the poor fellows managed to make fast 
and by it hot coffee and bread and butter 



WRECKS. 147 

were sent over to them. Refreshed and strength- 
ened they aided new endeavours to establish com- 
munication with the shore, and in a few hours this 
was accomplished much after the fashion of the 
rocket apparatus, by a rude chair sliding over a 
strong rope, and in this manner they were one by 
one brought safe to land after ten hours' exposure to 
the gale and a sea which dashed over them the 
greater part of the time. 

The remainder of the crew, six in number, were 
lost ; and, says Mr. Johns, " for more than a fort- 
night the shore was crowded by poor people fish- 
ing up the damaged corn, which, though unfit for 
human food, found ready purchasers among those 
who kept pigs. People came a distance of ten or 
twelve miles to visit the scene of the wreck, and the 
various roads to the spot were a long time sprinkled 
with Indian corn which fell from their carts and 
bags. 

One of the most interesting narratives of modern 
shipwreck is that of the " Jonkheer Meester," and an 
account of it would have found a place here, but the 
author learnt, while these pages were in the press, 
that the respected vicar of Mullion, in whose parish 
the wreck occurred, is about to publish it in his 
" Mullyonania," and it is therefore here suppressed. 




WRECK OF THE COQUETTE. 



The huge waves raise their angry crests on high 
Into the tempest-cloud that blurs the sky, 
Holding rough dalliance with the fitful blast. 

Whose stiff breath, whistling shrill, 

Pierces with deadly chill 
The wet crew, feebly clinging to their shattered mast. 



N Wednesday night, Nov. 26, 1873, over 
the whole of our western coast there 
blew a gale from the S.W. Dark as 
pitch the pitiless wind howled and 
whistled round the houses, which even in their shel- 
tered nooks inland, could yet not hide themselves 
from the raging storm. 

The author was busy preparing the foregoing 
sheets, on the wrecks at Gunwalloe, and at the mo- 
mentalouder and stronger blast than usual thundered 
down upon and shook the house, remarked — " If this 
gale holds till morning we shall have a wreck." 

At an early hour next day a messenger arrived 
with the intelligence that a ship had gone ashore at 
Gunwalloe in the night, and one poor fellow drowned. 
The French schooner Coquette was on her voy- 
age from Bordeaux to Swansea when the fearful 
darkness of that fateful night overtook her. 



WRECK OF THE COQUETTE. 1 49 

Beating about in Mounts Bay, her sails splits one 
after another into ribands, and when night came her 
captain missed his reckoning and lights, and with 
disabled vessel and not sufficient canvass to man- 
age her, the crew anticipated the worst. 

But men will dare and do much, when looking death 
in the face, and this was the occasion of an act of 
bravery which deserves a record, and the success 
that attended it. 

The smart little vessel was driven by the relent- 
less storm into a small cove, where the jagged cliffs 
rose precipitously for a height of 200 feet. 

The huge waves dashed over her with crushing force, 
and striking the solid rocks shook them to their 
base, beating themselves all the while into a seetlf- 
ing mass of foam. 

Long before daylight the vessel would be shivered 
into atoms and her crew perish ; but one of them 
bravely volunteered to attempt to carry a line 
ashore ; and, fastening it round his body, plunged 
into the darkness and boiling surf. 

Clinging to the shaking wreck his comrades 
strained their eyes to watch him, but in vain. At 
length there came a pull at the cord, and a faint 
cry from the rocks above, and they knew their de- 
liverer had really managed to maintain his hold on 
the slippery cliff, and by climbing from one crag 
to another to reach a place of comparative safety. 



150 WRECK OF THE COQUETTE. 

But the perilous work of saving his fellow sea- 
men was not yet accomplished ; drawing a rope 
ashore, and making it fast to a boulder, one by one 
the rest scrambled across it hand over hand ; be- 
numbed, exhausted, half drowned, they came all 
but one. He, poor fellow, paused midway, and 
whether from fear or numbness relaxed his hold, 
dropped into the foam and disappeared. Three weeks 
afterwards his body came ashore, and we laid 
in the little churchyard, which contains so many 
seaman's graves, all that remained of Noye, the 
" boy," of the Coquette." 

The wonder was how the first man accomplished 
his desperate feat. To accomplish it in daylight 
would be extraordinary enough, but for a stranger 
to attempt it in the darkness, and succeed is little 
short of the miraculous. Providentially the vessel 
came into the only opening in the cliff, where such 
a thing could possibly be done ; nowhere east or west 
of that very spot, would there have been even the 
one chance out of the hundred for the desperate 
swimmer who should risk it. 

The escape of the survivors was a matter of 
astonishment to many, and the whole occurrence 
was well described in the newspapers at the time, 
one of which contained the following : — 



WRECK OF THE COQUETTE. 151 

FATAL WRECK IN MOUNT'S BAY. 
A DESPERATE EXPLOIT. 

Early on Wednesday a small schooner was ob- 
served beating in Mount's Bay, and apparently 
making very little progress. The wind was shift- 
ing from S.W. to N.W., and it was evident that 
unless she cleared the Mullion land before nightfall 
her position would be precarious. The rocket ap- 
paratus from Porthleven, in charge of the coast- 
guard officers, who were on the look out, was 
taken to Gunwalloe, and before midnight the vessel 
struck at Halzephron, a little cove about half a 
mile from Gunwalloe Church. The cliffs here are 
most precipitous, and nearly 200 feet high ; and the 
night was dark, with a gale of wind blowing, and 
a very heavy sea running. The coast guard were 
certain the ship was ashore, but could not see her 
distinctly. At last they made her out, and as she 
rose and fell with the waves they fired a rocket from 
the top of the cliffs. Whether the line crossed the 
the ship is unknown, but it was not made fast. Soon 
after the rocket was fired the Mullion coastguards- 
men with their apparatus arrived. As the tide 
was ebbing the officers got down the dangerous 
track to the beach, and there, huddled together in 



152 WRECK OF THE COQUETTE. 

a cleft of the rock, were four men. It was soon 
found that the captain and his crew had all left the 
wreck. Seeing that total destruction was inevit- 
able if they waited, one of the crew offered to swim 
ashore, and in the darkness of midnight, with the 
surging water raging all around, and the tempest 
howling, the noble fellow boldly plunged overboard 
with a line. The perilous task accomplished, he 
managed to make fast the rope to a projecting 
crag, and hand-over-hand the captain and one 
sailor landed safely. The third to go over the side 
was a boy between sixteen and seventeen years of 
age, but quite a man in stature, and either through 
fear, or more probably from his hands being be- 
numbed, he let go his hold, fell into the raging 
sea, and was swept away and seen no more. The 
remaining sailor then swung off and joined the 
survivors. Not an article was saved, and there 
the poor fellows lay shivering with cold with satu- 
rated clothes. The officers took off their warm 
top coats, and did all they could to alleviate their 
sufferings. The captain spoke English, and in- 
formed them that his vessel was the Coquette, of 
Dourrprensey, from Bordeaux, fifty-nine tons regis- 
ter, bound for Swansea, with a cargo of pitwood for 
coal mines. Captain Le Signe was owner, and 
left France only on Tuesday. He evidently was 



WRECK OF THE COQUETTE. 153 

unacquainted the coast, and mistook the lights of 
the bay, possibly seeing only one of the Lizard 
lights he thought it was the Longships. 

The schooner held together, and about three 
o'clock the tide had fallen so that Mr. William 
Lassiter, coastguardsman of Gunwalloe, got on 
board, and the crew followed. In a short time, 
through his energy, all the clothes and navigat- 
ing instruments were got together, thrust into bags 
or made up into bundles, and sent ashore. A bag 
of biscuit was also landed, and the captain was 
anxious to save two casks of brandy. These were 
eventually thrown over the side. The tide was 
now flowing, and all hands left the vessel. But 
for the anchor having been thrown out when she 
struck she would have drifted broadside on, and 
all would probably have been drowned, but thevessel 
swung with her stern to the shore, and thus the 
distance was not great. About nine o'clock in the 
morning, heavy breakers began to disturb the 
schooner's position, and in a very short time — in 
fact, in a few minutes — she went to pieces, and 
the cargo floated out, and was strewed all around 
the bay. The mass of rigging, with the keel, held 
there by the anchor, marked the spot ; but within 
an hour this was all that was left of the Coquette. 
The crew were taken care of at Gunwalloe, and 



154 WRECK OF THE COQUETTE. 

made as comfortable as possible till they could 
be removed to their homes. 

The place were this wreck took place is within 
a few yards of the spot on which the Lochleven 
Flower was so fatally stranded last November ; 
and looking down Halzephron's rocky sides, where 
the cliffs are almost perpendicular, and whose 
name signifies the infernal heights, the escape of 
the crew of the Coquette seemed almost miraculous. 
In broad daylight, and with aid at hand, such an 
adventure as the French sailor undertook would 
be fraught with danger and hazardous to life. 

During Wednesday night there was a good deal 
of lightning over the Land's End district from 
the S.W., and the sky was exceedingly dark in that 
direction. The whole was exceedingly stormy, and 
it is to be feared that many more wrecks will be 
heard of. The Coquette was thought to be at an- 
chor, and the Mousehole pilot boats might have got 
to her if they had known she was in trouble. 

Very seldom is it that the ideal of the poet 
could be realized in all its fullness on that rugged 
shore ; though nothing can exceed the loveliness of 
a calm summer's day in an about those limpid 
pools and rocky coves that startle one into admi- 
ration at every turn. 



THE DOLLAR WRECK. 



" Far as the eye can peer, 
The waters roll, divinely blue and clear, 
With white sails flashing in the sunlight's ray, 
Of countless vessels, near and far away; 



Here the wild sea-gull plumes her snowy breast, 

Then skims the wave or perches on the crest 

Of some majestic cairn, or cromlech where 

Long atjes past the Druids knelt in prayer, 

Till, with stretched wing she cleaves the fields of blue, 

Dips 'neath the Atlantic, and is lost to view." 



JMONG the stones of the many wrecks, 
which in themselves add to the weird in- 
terest of this rugged bit of coast, is that 
of one which has been the cause of much 
speculation and adventure. More money has pro- 
bably been spent in the endeavour to recover the lost 
treasure than the vessel was worth when she sailed 
out of port with her rich freight on board. 

Eighty-eight years ago, on a stormy night, a 
Spanish vessel came ashore on the point of cliff 
which shelters the little church of S. Winwaloe ; 
just on the outside of a ledge of rocks she struck 
and went to pieces ; nothing of her was saved. She 
had on board a large quantity of specie, variously 




15^ THE DOLLAR WRECK. 

estimated, but generally supposed to have been 
about seventeen to nineteen tons weight of dollars.* 

There must have been a very considerable quantity 
from the fact that, from time to time, ever since, con- 
siderable numbers have been picked up. I have 
even heard that, years ago, the boys on the neigh- 
bouring farms used to go during their dinner time 
down to the rocks, laid bare at low tide, and there 
pick them up in pails and buckets. The pails-full 
may be exagerations, but sufficient have been found 
to prove that a very large quantity were on board 
the vessel. 

No measures, however, on a large scale, for re- 
covering the precious metal, were adopted till the 
year 1845, when people were startled to hear that 
a party of adventurers were going to sink a dollar 
mine in the sea. The vessel had gone to pieces 
between two rocks at a short distance from the 
base of the cliff, and here it was proposed to con- 
struct a kind of breakwater or coffer-dam, from 
which the water was to be pumped out, and the 
dollars picked up at leisure. 

A path was cut in the face of the cliff, and iron 
rods were fixed in the rocks. The work was begun 

* The Parochial History of Cornwall says two and a-half 
tons, but this is far too small considering the numbers which 
are known to have been recovered from time to time. 



THE DOLLAR WRECK. 1 57 

in lovely weather,* and a continuous calm lasted 
for about six weeks ; had the work been prose- 
cuted with vigour, they might have succeeded in 
the first part of the enterprise ; but, just as the 
breakwater was on the point of completion, a breeze 
sprung up from the S.W., and in the course of a 
few hours the waves knocked it and all the ma- 
chinery away, annihilating in a single night the 
work^of so many weeks. 

The attempt to recover the treasure in 1845, if 
the first, was by no means the last venture of the 
kind ; from time to time fresh schemes have been 
put forward to this end, and with the same want of 
success. The general belief is, that the ship struck 
on the outer rock of the ledge, and heeling over on her 
side, tumbled the dollars out into a sort of natural 
basin in the rock, where they are supposed to have 
remained (the main portion of them) covered with 
sand. 

Some years ago a company was formed for 
getting them up. They sunk a shaft in a solid 
rock, and drove from that an adit under the shore 
for many feet, trying more than one plan to get at 

* It is a very unusual thing for a calm to last many days at 
this point. There is a certain set of tide, both in ebb and 
flow, which creates an under swell. During the whole three 
months that Mr. Boyd's party worked in '72, there was not 
one dav when the diver could stand under water with comfort. 



158 THE DOLLAR WRECK. 

the place where the dollars were supposed to be 
lying. Unfortunately one day the water burst into 
the workings, the miners took to their heels and saved 
themselves, but not their tools. 

The last, and most interesting effort to reach 
these lost dollars, was in 1872, when a London 
clergyman, projecting a summer's holiday, lit upon 
the novel expedient of passing a few weeks at Gun- 
walloe, camping out on the cliff, and making an 
attempt to pump up the sand, and then get at the 
coin with a diver. 

It was a capitally original idea — and as thorough 
a relaxation from the brain wearing work and anxie- 
ties of an East London parish as could well be 
imagined — the only regret felt by all who witnessed 
the most interesting operations of the working party 
was, that their labours were foiled by continued 
rough weather and their enterprise was not re- 
warded by the recovery of the treasure. 

It will be well perhaps to tell the story of "The Dol- 
lar Mine'' in the very words of the narrative written 
during the progress, and shortly after the completion 
of the venture, for " The British Juvenile."* 

The Dollar Mine. 
1. 
A few weeks ago I took a tramp in dear old 

* " The British Juvenile," Vol. . pp. and 283. 



THE DOLLAR WRECK. I 59 

Cornwall. I wanted much to see the Land's End, 
for often and often I had stood and looked at the 
big map of England in our school-room, and won- 
dered what the coast must look like, in that funny 
little corner of our island, the " Old Woman's toe," 
as we used to call it, for we boys always had a 
notion that on the map England and Scotland 
looked like an old woman sitting down, nursing a 
baby on her lap. The baby of course is Wales. 

Well, I went by the train, as far as it could take 
me, and then I started for my tramp, and I walked 
the old ground right round the coast that our 
fathers, the ancient Britons, ay, and men before 
them, walked over and over again. 

I saw, in fact, all there was to see ; and wonder- 
ful sights they were. Druidical stones and old 
churches and granite quarries, and such cliffs. No- 
where have I ever seen such piles of stones, many 
of them as big as a good sized cottage, piled one 
on top of another, just as if they had been laid 
there by a mason from town, and yet every one of 
these rocks so heavy no machinery man ever made 
would move it. 

And then I stood on the very tip and edge of 
Land's End and looked out to sea. I felt as I 
never felt before, the majesty of the ocean, the 
mighty power of God, and the infinite wisdom of 
his works. 



160 THE DOLLAR WRECK. 

As I stood and watched at the roaring waves, 
which dashed their spray over the lighthouse in the 
distance out at sea, and yet made no visible impres- 
sion on the black rocks at my feet, I thought, sup- 
posing these rocks had been anything but granite — 
granite hard as adamant — the sea would soon have 
the hills down, and make short work with the cliffs 
at their feet, but granite stands, hard and cold, and 
the old sea cannot knock it over, cannot make very 
much impression ; and thus the Land's End pre- 
serves its pointed form from generation to genera- 
tion, with little change or alteration, as the seasons 
come and go. 

In the course of my walking I saw plenty of 
mining, and tin mines everywhere ; but one little 
scene will long remain with me, and the Dollar 
Mine of Gunwalloe be a pleasant memory with me 
for many a long day. 

Well, you will say, I know they dig deep for tin 
and copper, but surely they don't go down for dol- 
lars, and find ready made coins in the mines. 

So I must explain what the villagers and fisher- 
men called a " dollar mine." 

In my walk one day along the coast, I ascended 
the cliff higher and higher, the road winding first 
one way then another, until I reached the top, and 
then I saw a lovely prospect before me. The sea 



DOLLAR WRECK. l6l 

as blue as it is possible for it to be, before me a 
small line of rock jutting out into the sea, forming 
on either side of it a sandy cove, and on the lower 
land side of the rock a little church and tower 
peeping out, its foundations only a few feet from the 
waves, and its roof open to the spray from the 
glistening waters. 

On the top of the rocky hill above the church 
were two tents, which looked white and clean 
against the evening sky. 

" What have we here, then ?" said I to the boy 
I had picked up as a guide. 

" Oh ! they be the dollar men." 

" The dollar men ?" 

" Ees !" says he. " They be diving for dollars." 

This was curious enough to make me curious. 
After a closer inspection of the tents and apparatus 
I found on the hill, I learnt enough of what was 
going on to induce me to walk over the " Towans,' 
as they call the sand hills, to the village and there 
take up my abode for a few days, while I made 
my observations on the dollar mine. 

That night round the wood fire in the inn kit- 
chen, while the old mother nodded in her chair, 
and the kitten played with her knitting, which 
had fallen all unheeded on the floor, the old mas- 
ter told me the whole history of the dollar mine. 

" Eighty-five years ago, on a stormy night, a 

M 



1 62 DOLLAR WRECK. 

Spanish vessel came ashore on the point there, 
just outside the ledge of rocks, struck, went down, 
nothing saved. 

" She went to pieces, laden with Spanish dol- 
lars ; and strange to relate very few of the dollars 
were washed ashore. Few comparatively. From 
time to time some dozens were picked up. Now 
the boys would find a few in dinner time ; then 
a chance comer would pick up one or more ; but 
the general belief was that she struck on the 
outer rock, and heeling over on her side, tumbled all 
the dollars out into a sort of natural basin in the 
rock, and that there they have been ever since. 

" Many years ago a company was started to 
get the dollars up. They sunk a shaft in the 
solid rock, and drove from that a passage along 
under the shore for many feet, trying first one 
plan and then another to get at the places where they 
hoped the dollars would be, until one unlucky day 
the water burst into their mine. The miners took 
to their heels and saved themselves, but not their 
tools. These were left, and the water took pos- 
session of the rock once more. 

" Another adventurer was struck with the idea 
that he could build a breakwater just outside the 
cove and set to work in lovely weather to do it 
— indeed he nearly succeeded, but just as the 
breakwater was complete a storm arose, and 



DOLLAR WRECK. 163 

knocked it and all his machinery away, annihilating 
in a single night the labour of weeks and months. 

"Now, however, they are trying something dif- 
ferent. They are going to pump the dollars up." 

" Pump them up from the bottom of the sea ?" 
said I. 

" Ay," said the old man. " They have got a 
pump, and they can pump 'em ; and maybe they'll 
have the dollars yet." 

Such was the story I heard that night before I 
went to bed : nay, more, the old fellow, to satisfy 
my longing curiosity, produced a dollar which he 
had picked up last summer in the cove, jammed 
tight between two rocks. Here was proof positive 
that dollars were about. Nothing more was needed. 
I engaged my room for a week, and made up my 
mind to join the dollar party. 

It certainly was a pretty sight : the tents, the 
headland, and the sea. No house, no life present, 
but ourselves. We made a lively party on the whole, 
though my work the week through was chiefly look- 
ing on, and lending a hand now and then. 

We, — for I felt so deep an interest in the proceed- 
ings, as to identify myself with the whole thing, — 
we had a couple of engineers, a couple of miners, a 
professional diver and his mate, a sailor to cook, 
three or four to look on and lend a hand, two dogs 



164 DOLLAR WRECK. 

to keep guard, and nothing that any one could pos- 
sibly carry away. 

In the shaft of the mine, the one that the com- 
pany formed years ago, we fixed the pump, a huge 
affair altogether. The diver had to clear out this 
shaft, first of all, and there, twenty-five feet below 
the surface of the sea, he found the mining tools the 
men had left behind when they ran for life, a quar- 
ter of a century ago. 

At length the pump is fixed ; — now to drive it. 
This must be done with the agricultural engine of a 
thrashing machine, — and the rocks must be blasted 
and cut away so as to allow the driving-bands of 
india-rubber to run freely. 

At length all is prepared. Pipes are laid and 
fixed in the passages of the mine and shaft, which 
protects the framework of the pump, and prevents 
it being washed away, and now nothing to do but 
to blow up the end of the mine into the sea and 
pump away : and if the dollars are anywhere about 
the cove, up they must come. 

But all this preparation was not completed in a 
minute or a day. My week lengthened itself out ; 
for there were days when the sea was so rough 
the men could not work at all, others when the 
diver could only go down in his queer looking dress 
for about an hour, and then the waves rose too high. 

So that, after all, my holiday came to an end, 



DOLLAR WRECK. 1 65 

and I saw no dollars. I was hopeful and anxi- 
ous, and my eyes longed to see the shining money 
in the trough where the great engine threw the 
vast volumes of sand and water, — eight tons per 
minute, — but day after day passed and the dol- 
lars came not, but I trust still, for they are work- 
ing still, and though I have nothing but a few 
little sketches of the tents and the engine, and 
the pretty little Gunwalloe Church, nestled in its 
rocky home, and the memories of the many quiet 
hours spent by the dollar mine ; yet I wish them 
well, and hope the treasure will yet be theirs, 
for they work with a will, earnest and undaunted, 
and deserve success, doing what they have taken 
in hand, with all their might and main. 

THE DOLLAR MINE. 



TART II. 

GUNWALLOE once again*! for in all my work in 
this dusty city, my thoughts were continually going 
back to the little Cornish hamlet with its wild and 
beautiful coast scenes, its simple-hearted people, in 
the midst of which I had spent my happy summer 
holiday, watching the " dollar diving" party of 
whom I told our young readers awhile ago. 

Gunwalloe once again ! for I could not stay 



1 66 DOLLAR WRECK. 

away, and I wanted to see the end of the Dollar 
Mine, and watch, with my own eyes, the shining 
coins, as I pictured them to myself, coming up out 
of the sea. 

Turning my back on the busy hum of towns, not 
many hours of travel brought me to the end of Eng- 
land, and after a tedious drive of many miles from 
the nearest station, I found myself standing once 
more on the little grassy headland, looking out to sea, 
enjoying the fresh breeze and pure air, and anxiously 
inquiring all the latest news from the " venturers," 
who this time welcomed me amongst them, not as 
a stranger, but rather as an old friend. 

No dollars yet, though ! Not a shadow of one. 
The weather had been too rough ; and many a day 
did the little company look out seaward, watching 
the weather, taking the measure of the sky as we 
called it; hoping every turn of the wind would 
bring the favourable calm. 

Determined nowtowatch the " Dollar" operations 
to the end, I gladly joined the party, and made my 
first essay in " camping out," whieh needs to be ex- 
perienced to be described, and is, with all its draw- 
backs, a pleasant change from city life. 

Oh, what a history I could write of our little 
makeshifts ! How, for want of washing basins, we 
used the good old sea himself, taking our dip every 
morning, as soon as day-break warned every man 



DOLLAR WRECK. 1 67 

to turn out and roll up his blankets. And then our 
washing day, and episodes of cooking, our little 
journeys inland to forage,, and our traffic with the 
natives,— all would fill a book. 

Our tents were pitched upon the top of the cliff, 
not many feet from the edge, and in hot and sunny 
weather were extremely comfortable, and always 
convenient, being so close to the work ; but in windy 
weather it made sharp work for us all to hold on. 
One tent was used by the manager of the enter- 
prise, his foreman, and any visitors who might wish 
to stay a night or two as his guests — at the "Atlan- 
tic Hotel" as we named it — for one might almost as 
well be out on the Atlantic itself as within forty feet 
of it, on a stormy night in a tent. In the other tent, 
a large one, lived the diver and his mate, two Corn- 
ish miners, a sailor to cook for the party, and a 
couple of labourers, besides the engineers to look 
after the machinery. 

One night, when the sea was roaring and the wind 
blowing so roughly that, although every one of us 
were in our blankets snug enough, yet not one of us 
could sleep, suddenly there was a rent, and a gust, 
that made a noise like a gun, and in a moment all 
was bustle and confusion in the darkness. The hur- 
ricane had lifted one of the peg ropes that held 
down the tent, and before any one could lend a 
hand to secure it, away went the flap of the tent, 



1 68 DOLLAR WRECK. 

and away went blankets and clothes and everything 
that was not secured, or too heavy to be blown 
away. Fortunately, the wind was blowing in 
from the sea, and not off the land, or else everything 
would have gone out to the waves. As it was, there 
was a general stampede in the darkness, every one 
for himself ; some half dressed, and some trying 
to dress, but all hurrying down the hill to catch the 
runaway goods. 

With all the agility the party possessed, some 
of the things were not to be found till day-light 
came and disclosed their hidingplaces — behind a big 
stone, hitched in a bank, or hidden away in a ditch. 

No more sleep that night for any of us, and 
after that, we were careful to see that our fasten- 
ings were all secure, when the wind blew more hard 
than usual. 

And then the way we amateurs did work ! At 
the very edge of the cliff a sort of platform had to 
be cleared, whereon the engine might stand to drive 
the pump-bands. 

This huge machine must be held back from top- 
pling over, by strong ropes affixed to posts sunk 
deep into the ground ; and to dig the holes for 
these was no trifling labour, for below the surface 
of about six inches of earth there was nothing but 
solid rock that would only yield to a crowbar or a 
heavy pick. 



DOLLAR WRECK. 1 69 

It was done, however, after many a turn and 
turn about, for during all this time, when the tide 
allowed, we all went down on to a large flat rock, 
where the old shaft was situated, at the bottom of 
the cliff, and which was uncovered at half tide. 

Our means of getting down to this rock was by a 
rope made fast to the top of the cliff ; and using 
this as a hold-fast, a man could easily walk down, a 
sort of half-walk, half-cling, till he reached firm 
foot-hold at the bottom. It was tiresome work, 
though, for even the machine for pumping air to the 
diver when he was under water had to be hauled up 
and down here, whenever wanted for use ; and being 
fairly heavy, it was very hard work. 

Let me just give a picture of what it was like 
when the diver went down. 

All of us, ten to fifteen, all down on the flat rock, 
surrounded by the sea, which, just outside the rock, 
was fifteen to twenty feet deep. 

Two of us get a ladder down over the side of the 
rock, placed firm at the bottom, and secured well 
to the rock. This is the diver's staircase. Two 
more, including his " mate," are engaged dressing 
the diver, a small spare man, who whiffs his pipe 
comfortably as we go on muffling him up in a great 
india-rubber pair of trowsers that come up round 
his waist, over his arms, and round his neck. On 



170 DOLLAR WKECK. 

his feet, outside this, a large pair of large boots, 
with lead attached to make him sink well. 

Last of all, when every thing else is ready, we 
fix his helmet on, a large heavy round brass cap for 
his head, with little windows in it, and at one side 
an india-rubber pipe fixed, one end into the helmet, 
the other to the air machine. A little hole is left 
open for him to breathe the outer air till the last 
moment, and then, as this is being closed up, and 
secured tight, the signal is given for those at the 
apparatus to begin pumping, and as they turn their 
handles round and round, so the air is forced into 
the diver's dress, enabling him to breathe wherever 
he may be, even at the bottom of the sea. If they 
were to stop pumping, the man would die. 

And now the interest is very great, for the diver 
is going down to send up some sand and see if there 
are any dollars about. Very slowly he walks, led by 
each hand to the edge where the ladder is ; and as 
he goes down, step by step, slow yet sure, it seems 
as if he never will be able to come up again with 
all the weight of lead he carries, — huge plates of 
lead on his shoulders, and lead in his boots. 
Round his waist is fixed a rope, which he will 
pull if danger arises, or if he wants to come up ; 
and his mate stands by with this rope in one 
hand, and the air pipe in the other, and he pays 
out both as the diver descends lower and lower, 



DOLLAR WRECK. 171 

until at length a jerk on the rope tells he has 
reached the bottom. 

Minutes pass ; and nothing is to be heard or seen. 
All stand by, watching the pulsation of the pipe as 
the air passes along it ; the waves as they come in, 
rolling slowly one after another : the line of rope, 
the slightest jerk of which would denote some sig- 
nal of the diver. 

Presently the signal is made for a bucket, and 
slowly an iron bucket is thrown over the rock, and 
let down by a rope to the bottom of the sea. A 
jerk, and away we haul ; carefully though, not to 
lose any of the dollars. Up it comes, and alas ! 
contains nothing but sand. And so we go on for 
two hours, or more, basket after basket, and nothing 
but stones and sand. 

Then the tide begins to come over the rock, and 
the signal is made for the diver to ascend ; and by 
the time we have undressed him, and got all the 
tools and pails and ladders and apparatus out of 
the reach of the waves up the cliff, most of us are 
wet through with the spray which has been dashing 
over us for the last half-hour. 

Never mind ! our sailor cook has something sa- 
voury for us in his pot on the fire, and away we go 
to our supper, with appetites so keen, we wonder 
whether we shall ever be satisfied ; more than ever 



172 DOLLAR WRECK. 

inclined to believe in the heathen philosopher and 
poet, who said : " Hunger is the best sauce." 

This diving is a fair sample of many days at the 
dollar work ; but no success came of it all, and at 
last there came an end. Patient and persevering as 
all had been, and deserving as they did to find the 
treasure that undoubtedly lies hidden in this corner 
of the sea, the truth must be told. The adven- 
turers got tired of spending money with no result, 
for it was no little expense to keep all these men, 
only able to work at times when wind and tide and 
weather would permit. So at last it was determined 
to blow up the bottom of the sea, where the dollars 
were supposed to be. 

Three holes were bored by the miners in the 
end of the old shaft, the level of which was about 
three feet under the waves, forty feet out from the 
rock. 

With no little trouble the mine is laid. No gun- 
powder used, but dynamite, a composition much 
stronger than gunpowder ; and employed on ac- 
count of its safety. The last day has come. Ever 
since daybreak the two miners have been at work 
completing their preparations. Twenty-three feet 
of safety fuse, which will burn twelve to fifteen 
minutes, before it reaches the " holes," gives the two 
men time to get to the top of the cliff with safety, 



DOLLAR WRECK. 1 73 

after firing them. So, about breakfast time, the 
eventful moment comes, and all the party gather 
round to see the " end of the dollar mine." 

Tom, the miner, is down there fixing the ends of 
the fuse, and at his signal, when all is ready, his 
mate races down with a smouldering piece of rope, 
to fire the train. 

A moment's hesitation — the distance is too great 
to see very clearly, but they are both stooping over 
the thin tape that is to carry the deadly fire down, 
through rocks and waves, and under the water to the 
mine waiting to be sprung. 

Now they run ! The thin column of fine smoke 
tells that the fuse is going, and up the cliff they 
come like cats, hauling themselves up, hand over 
hand, by the rope. 

And now we all wait breathless. One minute, 
two, ten have passed. Nothing ! 

At last, the earth seems to shake, and give way 
beneath us. The report is like the deep boom of 
thunder. Though we are sixty feet above the water, 
the huge pieces of rock are thrown up out at sea, 
much higher than our heads, and the water goes 
up in one large central column, like nothing but a 
water-spout, or the great fountains of the Crystal 
Palace ; and long after the roar and splash have 
subsided, the water is discoloured with the sand 
we disturbed from the bottom. 



174 DOLLAR WRECIC 

The wind did not subside, however, and ouf 
diver could not descend into the open sea, so we 
were forced to leave without being able to dis- 
cover the whereabouts of the dollar bags after 
all. A few more days in packing up, one more 
Sunday in the quiet little church that stands at 
the entrance to the cove, one more stroll along 
the beach, and then away again to work and toil 
of a very different sort. 

We have left behind evidences of our visit. 
Pipes and poles and barrels mark the spot where 
our camp was pitched ; all that was worth taking 
away we took, but there is enough left to mark the 
spot for many a long day to come ; and Gunwalloe 
has left its impression upon its visitors, who will 
not easily forget the many pleasant and happy hours 
spent upon its shore in the fruitless search after the 
lost and buried dollars.* 

Oddly enough, though the party of 1872 did not 
succeed in recovering even a single specimen of 
the lost dollars, proof positive that there are dol- 
lars somewhere about the spot is afforded by the 
fact that, a few months after they had left, the 

* There is a tradition that the " notorious Capt. Avery, 
as he is called, secreted a large quantity of treasure in the 
sand banks of Gunwalloe, but this is generally believed to be 
a mistake, and that the locality was Kennack Cove on the 
other side of the Lizard Head. At any rate, about the year 
1770, a grant of treasure trove was obtained by Mr. John 
Knill, a collector of customs at S. Ives, who spent some 
money in a fruitless search. 




FIIBM ^THE BBBHEE WIMEgB 



DOLLAR WRECK. 175 

farmer occupying Winianton, in which homestead 
the Castle Hill and " dollar mine " is situated, 
during a low spring tide descended the shaft where 
the pump had been fixed, and there found two dol- 
lars on the very spot where they had been working. 

These are figured on opposite plate, Nos. 1 and 2. 
No. 3 is an ordinary pillar dollar of the same date, 
shewing the difference between it and those which 
have been submerged for 85 years. 

No. 4 is a curiosity, one of the dollars jammed 
between a piece of iron and rock, fixed there by 
corrosion and the action of sea water. 

Connected, however, with this finding of dollars, 
is a singular story of a dream, which was related 
to me by a Mullyon man, whose family had lived, 
father and son, for more than a hundred years in 
the place, and who recollected, when a boy, hearing 
of the circumstances as of fresh occurrence. The 
story is best told in his own words : — 

The grandmother of Jeremiah Jose (this man is 
now living in Mullyon) who used to live at Tre- 
nance in Mullyon, one night dreamed she saw a 
bag of dollars lying on the beach at Gunwalloe, 
close to the spot where the vessel was known to 
have broken up. She awoke her husband, and 
begged him to go with her straight to the place in 
order to attach the booty. He jeeringly refused, 
and laughed her and her dream to scorn. 



1/6 DOLLAR WRECK. 

" However, determined on the thing, she said 
she would take Jerry with her and go, Jerry being 
her son, a lad at that time. At daylight they went 
and, sure enough, as soon as they got to the cove, 
she saw the bag of dollars, well known to her from 
her dream, lying on the sand. While employed 
ripping it up, for the bag was of leather, and con- 
tained about I cwt. of silver, some miners espied 
her, and, coming down upon her, forced the prize 
rom her, and ultimately fell to among themselves 
fighting over it. Blood was shed, and during the 
melee, the tide coming in rapidly as it does here, 
the waves scattered the pieces in the sand and car- 
ried the bag away, and the end of it was that nei- 
ther she nor they had the dollars." 

It must be borne in mind, as to the latter part 
of the story, that Cornish wrecking had not ceased 
eighty years ago, and that to this day the miners of 
Breage and Germoe, from whence these are said to 
have come, areproverbiallyavery rough set of fellows. 

That they were so then is readily to be believed ; 
and in confirmation of the above story, which else 
might savour of the incredible, there are plenty of 
traditions as to the battles which used to take place 
between rival bodies of men in search of loot and 
plunder. One handed down from father to son in 
a family at Cury is narrated at page III. In the 
latter part of the last century a Mr. Knill (probably 



WRECKS. 177 

the Mr. Knill, Custom House officer at St. Ives 
procured leave to search for treasure trove along 
the coast in 1770) put forth a curious proposal for 
scheme for the prevention of wrecking, which is 
worth a perusal.* 

The march of intellect and civilization have, how- 
ever, happily brought in their train a better state 
of things, and the following shows that thirty years 
since a different feeling was abroad, which has 
spread far and wide, till, even in the corners of 
West Barbary, the life-boat and rocket-line have 
taken the place of the false beacon and treacherous 
signal-light. 

It was in 1845 that a French ship was driven 
ashore within twelve miles of the Lizard-head, and 
the inhabitants of Porthleven, the village just by 
the Looe Bar, rendered every assistance to the 
unfortunate crew, all of whom were saved. The 
vessel was driven so high on shore, that she could 
not be got off, and was of necessity sold as she 
stood on the beach. Greatly to their honour, the 

* A very curious paper came into my hands some time 
since, and from evidence since adduced it would appear to 
be the production of a Mr. Knill mentioned above as a 
Custom House officer at St. Ives. It is entitled " A Curious 
Scheme for the Prevention of Wrecking," and was written in 
the end of the past or beginning of the present century. It 
would be worth reproducing, but would make this book too 
large and bulky. 

N 



178 WRECKS. 

poor fishermen, who had bestowed much of their 
time and labour on the preservation of the vessel^ 
declined any remuneration, and, with one solitary 
exception, begged that the salvage money might 
be paid over to the houseless strangers, which was 
accordingly done.* 

Apropos of dreams, in this part of the country, 
Carew, in his " Survey," has the following : — 
" Some have found tynne-workes of great vallew, 
through means no less strange then extraordinairie, 
to wit, by dreames. As in Edward the Sixts time, 
a gentlewoman, heire to one Tresculierd, and wife 
to Lanine, dreamed that a man of seemely per- 
sonage told her how, in such a tenement of land, 
shee should find so great store of tynne as would 
serue to inrich both herselfe and her posteritie. This 
shee reuealed to her husband, and hee, putting the 
same in triall, found a worke, which in foure yeeres 
was worth him welneere so many thousand pounds. 

" Moreouer, one Taprel, lately liuing, and dwell- 
in the parish of the hundred of West, call'd S. 
Niot, by a like dreame of his daughter (see the 
lucke of women) made the like assay, met with 
the effect, farmed the worke of the vnwitting Lorde 
of the Soyle, and grew thereby to good state of wealth. 

" The same report passeth as currant touching 
* C. A. Johns. " Forest Trees of Britain." 



WRECKS. 179 

sundrie others ; but I will not bind any mans 
credite, though that of the Authors haue herein 
swayed mine ; and yet he that will afford his eare 
to astrologers and naturall philosophers, shall haue 
it filled with many discourses of the constellation 
of the heauens and the constitution of mens bodies 
fitting to the purpose." 

Happily, the chronicler of the above bindeth no 
man's credit. 

In a collection 01 anecdotes by James Pettit 
Andrews, in 1790, there is included a curious 
" Cornish Tale of Naval Woe," which, because 
relating to Gunwalloe, is worth inserting here : — 

" A Cornish Tale of Naval Woe, which can be 
attested by scores of living witnesses, as it 
happened within the last twenty years. 

" Gunwalloe Downs, which form the eastern side 
of Mount's Bay, stretching out towards the Lizard 
Point, lie on the top of a very high, steep, and 
long-extended cliff, which, during a great part of 
the year, is incessantly beaten by a tremendous 
surge driven from the Bay of Biscay by an almost 
constant west wind. During a space of many 
miles, there is no inlet to the land ; but the face of 
the cliff is occupied towards the top by sea-birds, 
and the bottom, where there are many caverns, is 
usually the resort of seals. One stormy winter's 
night, signals of distress were observed, and a 



1 80 WRECKS. 

large ship, which had been driven under the cliffs, 
was known to be lost. Such an incident on that 
coast was by no means unusual ; but in the morn- 
ing the people assembled on the Downs to look if 
any remains of the vessel were floating on the 
waves, were shocked by hearing loud and united 
cries and groans from persons below the cliff. 
They knew that these must come from some cave, 
to which the shipwrecked people had found means 
to attain, for the tide left no beach, and they knew 
too the impossibility of helping them, as no boat 
could venture, in such weather, under such a cliff. 
The cries, however, continuing, they tried, by let- 
ting down baskets with ropes in different places, to 
afford some relief, but in vain, for the over-hanging 
cliff prevented the sufferers from reaching what 
was intended for their relief. In short, during three 
days the same mournful noise was heard ; it grew 
then weaker by degrees, till hunger and fatigue 
probably closed the wretched scene. Many of the 
seal-holes were afterwards searched for these hap- 
less mariners, but in vain. The surf had probably 
washed away and dispersed their remains." 

That eighty years ago wrecking had not entirely 
ceased on the coasts of Cornwall, we may believe 
from the fact that it was only a few years previous 
that a scheme had been seriously propounded for 
the prevention of the evil. 



WRECKS, l8l 

There is a story, let us hope exaggerated, of the 
wrecker who, prowling along the cliff in search of 
prey, came upon a young girl clinging with dying 
grasp to the rocks with a hand that bore a ring on 
one of its fingers, and in a moment he had out his 
knife and cut the ring away. It is almost too fearful ; 
but a scrutiny of these traditions, it is feared, would 
only prove that the Cornish wreckers did not come 
by their reputation without reason. 

Cyrus Redding relates. — and the story is taken 
up and echoed by other writers pretty numerously — 
that in the last century one of the " unscrupulous " 
tied up the leg of an ass at night, hung a lantern 
round its neck, and drove it himself along the edge 
of the cliff where he lived, so that the halting 
motion of the animal might imitate the plunging of 
a vessel under sail, and thus tempt the seamen to 
run in, imagining there was plenty of room, certain 
destruction being of course the only and looked-for 
result. 

Happily, in these days, humanity has prompted 
the nobler instincts of our nature to do and dare 
to save, not to destroy ; and many are the instances 
recorded, in almost every Cornish parish on the sea- 
coast, of heroic deeds by the life-boat crew and the 
fishermen of the cove in their efforts to save the 
crews of the ill-fated vessels dashed upon their shore. 



THE HOLY WELL AT GUNWALLOE. 



' A well there is in the west country, 
And a clearer one never was seen." 

Southey. 

' Is't true the springs in rocks hereby 
Doth tidewise ebb and flowe ? 
Fame says it, be it soe." 

" Cornish Wonder Gatherer.'' 



| LOSE to the church porch, only a few 
feet over the precipitous rock, which inpart 
forms a breakwater and protection from 
the waves, are the remains of the Holy 
Well, doubtless the resort in former days of many 
a lad and maiden. 

The spring that once bubbled up in its rocky 
basin is no longer there ; sand and stones fill up 
the well at each high tide, and though occasionally 
cleaned out for the satisfaction of the wayfarer's 
curiosity is yet only an imperfect semblance of its 
former self. 

In heathen times springs and fountains were ob- 
jects of veneration, the gods delighting to honor 
them, Diana presided over that of Arethusa, poets 




THE HOLY WELL AT GUNWALLOE. 1 83 

sang of them, the Roman Fontinalia owed to them 
their origin. 

" O Fons Bandusiae splendidior vitro 
Fies nobilium tu quoque fontium 
Me dicente." 

So sang Horace ; and, when the Christian era 
dawned, saints and holy men filled the place which 
had been given to heathen deities. 

The wayside cross pointed to the holy well, where 
saints' or angels' name, tradition and legendary lore 
had hallowed the limped stream. 

" One meek cell 
Built by the fathers o'er a lonely well, 
Still breathes the Baptist's sweet remembrance round 
A spring of silent waters." 

In some places in Cornwall baptismal water for 
the font is still obtained from the holy well of the 
village. 

Writing of Madron, a very famous well near 
Penzance, Norden remarks — " Its fame in former 
ages was greater for the supposed virtue of healing 
which S. Madderne had there into infused, and 
manie votaries made anuale pilgrymages unto it ; but 
of late S. Madderne hath denied his (or her, I know 
not whether) pristine ayde, and as he is coye of his 
cares, so now are men coye of comynge to his con- 
jured well, yet some a daye resorte/' 



1 84 THE HOLY WELL AT GUNWALLOE. 

Many are the stories told of S. Madderne's cures, 
and many are the virtues ascribed to the waters of 
these venerated springs. 

On the] first three Wednesdays in May mothers 
would walk from far and near to dip their weak and 
rickety children in the holy well, to which pertained 
the healing qualities, and mention is made by a 
writer of a very famous well (the spring of Alsia) 
where on one occasion the mother-pilgrims were 
attacked by the villagers, who caught the strangers 
dipping their precious weaklings in the enclosed 
part of the well, or the place whence they drew 
their water. 

To drop pins into the well for the cure of warts 
is a common practice even at the present day. 

To these springs were attributed not only medi- 
cinal properties, but under certain conditions much 
more wonderful and mysterious influences. 

Water, water, tell me truly, 

Is the man I love duly 

On the Earth, or under the sod, 

Sick or well, — in the name of God ? 

By the credulous, Hydromancy, the divination of 
the future by the appearance and movement of the 
waters in the well, was commonly practised — a 
remnant of the early creeds of the world. In their 
simple faith, the maidens of the village have 



THE HOLY WELL AT GUNWALLOE. 1 85 

often gathered round the holy well, and in the still- 
ness of the summer evening, dropped their pebbles 
and pins into the water, eager to see what sweet- 
hearts would be united and who parted, and great 
was the skill required to read aright the omens. 
If the pins, when dropped into the wishing well 
remained united or separated, such was the fate 
foretold for the lovers. The number of bubbles 
raised [in the water foretold the number of years, 
etc., etc., in answer to the question. 

Sometimes the sacred bramble leaves were used ; 
sometimes the waters themselves were supposed 
to answer the all-important questions, and many 
are the stories on record concerning their good or 
evil portent. 

That Gunwalloe was considered by the country 
folk a well of some importance there can be little 
doubt, for one day in the year, which was called 
Gunwalloe Day, was set apart for cleaning out this 
holy well — it was quite at a different time of year 
to this parish feast — and now only remembered 
by two old men out of the whole population of the 
place.* 

* The parish feast is on the last Sunday in April. In the 
Roman Calendar S. Winwalloe is honoured on the 3 March ; 
but these two old men fix Gunwalloe, in May month,, because 
it was the time of tilling barley. 



1 86 THE HOLY WELL AT GUNWALLOE. 

They fix the time in their memories as the 
period of tilling barley, for they recollect that on this 
Gunwalloe Day it was the custom for the men to 
mend all the cliff roads (doubtless these were use- 
ful in days of smuggling when a successful run was 
a desirable thing), and that so strictly was it kept 
that, if any were found labouring in the fields, a 
party would go and take them by force, and press 
them into the service of the holiday makers, who, 
having mended the roads and cleared the holy well 
at Gunwalloe, wound up the day with merriment 
and revelry. 

Oftentimes, close to the well, there stood a 
holy cross, and these would disappear only 
when the wells themselves began to lose their 
sacred character. At the present time there may 
often be seen near by the once sacred spring or 
well, the base into which the shaft of the cross 
was fixed. 

There is one at Gunwalloe, close to the 
side of the churchyard wall, immediately above 
the well, and probably by the very path which 
was once commonly used to descend to the rocky 
basin on the shore. 

These stones, of which the one above named is a fair 
specimen — are generally flat stones of about three 
feet square, with a soffit in the centre of the size to 



THE HOLY WELL AT GUNWALLOE. 1 87 

take the foot of the cross ; in many instances the 
base as well as the cross has vanished. It is a mat- 
ter greatly to be regretted that such interesting 
mementos of the piety of our forefathers have not 
been allowed to remain unmolested, for the well and 
cross together would form no uninteresting relic 
of the fathers of our race, even in these enlightened 
days of the nineteenth century. 

" They had their lodges in the wilderness, 
Or built them cells beside the shadowy sea, 
And there they dwelt with angels, like a dream ! 
So they unclosed the Volume of the Book, 
And filled the fields of the Evangelist 
With thoughts, as sweet as flowers !" 



THE " CAERTH " 

OF CAMDEN. 



" And after that, came woful Emelie, 
With fire in hand, as was that time the gise, 
To don the office of funeral service." 

Chaucer "The Knightes Tale." 

"Oppidum autem Brittanni vocant, quum sylvas iinpeditas vallo 
atque forsa munierunt quo, incursionis hoslium vitandae causa, conve- 
nire consueverunt."— Caesar, De Bello Gall. v. 17. 



|0 much has been written on the rude me- 
morials of Cornwall's early inhabitants, 
that it would seem almost impossible to 
add anything. Dr. Borlase, notably 
having exhausted the whole subject of Cornish an- 
tiquities so far as they had been brought to light 
in his day, whether monoliths, or stone circles, 
tumuli, cromlechs, implements or coins. 

No new thing is attempted here ; but, as in the 
case of the old customs observed on Gunwalloe Day, 
they w r ere remembered by two old men, and on 
their death, or at most in a few years, would 
have been entirely forgotten, so there is in Gun- 
walloe the site of some very interesting remains, of 




THE CAERTH OF CAMDEN. 189 

which there is no written record to fix the exact 
spot, and open to the peril of oblivion, which in 
this case, we may hope, is timely averted. 

Camden mentions in his " Britannia," that near to 
the Lizard, the Ocrinumoi Ptolemy, "is a fortifica- 
tion* called Earth, formed of stones, filled up with- 
out any cement in a large circle, of which sort are 
many more disposed about the country, I suppose 
cast up in the wars with the Danes." 

Sammes, frequently quoted by the historian 
Polwhele, makes mention of the remains of an an- 
cient fortification that in his days existed in the 
vicinity of the Loo Pool, near Helston, which he 
supposed to be Phoenician ; of this ancient for- 
tress, Hitchens writes, "no vestige at present re- 
mains" Polwhele gives the word " Earth " a deri- 
vation from "Arth," high, above, and certainly 
that accords with the site of the circle lately iden- 
tified, which is on a hill, between Gunwalloe and 



* Vol. I., p. 4. Earth is not mentioned by Dr. Borlase by 
that name ; but it may be one of the seven in a tract of eight 
miles in the narrowest and westernmost part of the county 
made by Danish invaders, and therefore part of the ditch or 
vallum is unfinished, and they have British names from some 
memorable exploit. In accordance with this the Cornish 
villagers call them " fortifications," — much more probably, 
however, they have been used for sepulture. 



190 THE CAERTH OF CAMDEN. 

Poljew Coves Caerth, i.e., castle, or hill city, seems 
to be much nearer the mark. 

There seems little reason to doubt the accuracy 
of the identification, for the author having hunted 
fruitlessly up and down the coast line, east and 
west of the Looe Pool, at length lighted on one of 
the old villagers in Gunwalloe ninety years of age> 
and from whom so much that is of interest has been 
gathered since, and asking him if he remembered 
a place called Earth the old man immediately de- 
scribed the spot at Crickabella, adding that there 
" are no stones there now, for many years ago 
(near about seventy) the farmer, holding the land 
and farm of Gwylls, carted away the mound, which 
was a large one, for dressing the land," He re- 
membered this perfectly. 

On an examination of the site pointed out, there 
are clear traces in a circle of large stones having 
been there once, and probably a considerable 
mound, as the surface has all the irregular appear- 
ance of a place dug out in the hap-hazard manner 
of a country farm labourer. 

So far it is probable that to the retentive memory 
of the old Cornish man above named we owe the pre- 
servation of the site of Camden's " Earth." Then 
comes the query, was it a " fortification " properly 



THE CAERTH OF CAMDEN. 191 

so called, or was it not rather one of the many- 
sepulchral barrows that line the cliffs at this portion 
of the coast. 

It is not of like character with any of the " cliff 
castles " or " hill castles " whose ruins remain on so 
many of the well-known spots of West Cornwall. 
Castle-an-Dinas, Ch'un Castle, inland, the remains 
of Treryn and Treryn Dinas, the one on the south 
coast, and the other on the northern cliffs, are all 
very dissimilar to what Caerth must have been ; 
answering not at all to the words of the Roman 
general (De bello Gallico), and this, with other cir- 
cumstances to be mentioned, seems to favour the 
opinion that it must have been a place of inter- 
ment, perhaps containing more kist-vaens than one 
before it was built up into one common mound.* 

It is significant that not far from here, on the 

* Mr. Rd. Edmonds, in his Land's End District, p. 34, well 
remarks — " As a barrow often contains several urns or kist- 
vaens on the same floor, without any appearance of distinct 
periods of interment, our heathen ancestors may have buried 
their dead almost exclusively on one day of the week (as our 
poor neighbours do now on Sunday); the corpses being brought 
from the surrounding districts, and laid on one common pyre 
at such a distance from each other that, after the flames had 
ceased, the bones of the different bodies might be readily 
collected and deposited in and around urns, or in kist-vaens 
without urns, previously to covering up the whole in one com- 
mon heap. 



192 THE CAERTH OF CAMDEN. 

next hill at Angrowse, two barrows have been 
opened and described by W.Copeland Borlase, Esq. 
in his " Ncenia Corunbiae," and in each of them 
were found urns, ashes, and human bones. Another 
at Pradanack was opened by him in 1871, and 
found also to contain a vessel filled with bones. 

At Clahar Garden, once in Bochym, and where 
stood an ancient chapel, to which the cross at Pra- 
danack probably pointed the way, there was a large 
barrow ; this also was found to contain several urns 
with ashes and flints, when the mound was re- 
moved by the tenant farmer "for agricultural pur- 
poses!' 

It seems more than probable that we have here 
the key to the whole thing. Sepulchral barrows 
abound on the cliffs of that side of Mounts Bay, and 
nothing more likely than that the farmer should per- 
ceive that the dark unctuous earth, of which the 
mounds were composed, would be very fit dressing 
for the land. Why not this circle of " Earth ?" 

It was a mound ; was carted away by the farmer 
for the land, and probably had it been opened by 
the learned author of " Ncenia Cornubiae," or any 
other discreet and careful antiquarian, the chances 
are it would have been found to contain an urn or 
urns, standing in the black unctuous mould which 
marked the funeral pile of the ancient dead. 



THE CAERTH OF CAMDEN. 1 93 

A French writer* despairingly asks — " Que de 
buttes Celtiques ont disparu, dont les terres ont et6 
portees dans les champs pour y nourrir les bles ? 
Ne voyons-nous pas tous les jours encore les cultiva- 
teur fouiller les buttes de Locmaraquer, et n'est-ce 
pas a cette coutume, helas ! trop repandue qu^ 
Ton doit decouverte de la grotte du Mane-Lud V 

This is what happens on the south coast of Brit- 
tany ; this is what is continually happening on our 
own coast — the barrows go to manure our land, the 
crosses to form our gate posts. *f* 

There is one curiosity which, found near the cross 
and barrow at Pradanack, above mentioned, is 
worth recording, though it has no real connection 
with the two parishes which are subject of this 



* Fouquet, "Guide des Touristes dans le Morbihan." p. 
126. 

* This is what happened with the stone in Men-Perhen of 
Borlase in Constantine — A stone 20 feet above the ground, and 
four feet in it, large enough to make more than 20 stone gate 
posts for the farmer who destroyed it. — Borlase Antiq., p. 
156, edit. 1754. Later on, in 1869, in the same parish, the 
magnificent Tolmen (or Maen Rock) was destroyed, the gra- 
nite rocks on which it had rested for 2,000 years being blown 
up with gunpowder, and so this monument of antiquity fell 
as a chronicler remarks (Journal Royal Inst, of Cornwall 
No. x.), before the cupidity of the XlXth century. 

" Quid non mortalia pectora cogis 
Auri sacra fames !" 

O. 



194 THE CAERTH OF CAMDEN. 

work. It is a matrix of an antique Christian seal, 
already noticed by the writer, in the " British Ar- 
chaeological Journal " for 1874, and derives its main 
interest from the surroundings of the place wherein 
it was discovered. 




It is formed of bronze, and is very rude and rough 
in workmanship, probably of the early fifteenth 
century, though it may be late fourteenth century 
date. 

It has in the centre a cross standing on an apex 
formed by two lines with the letters IHC at the 
base. Round the seal are the words VANTIES 
TOI, and the legend and monogram together will 
read, I.H.C. VANGIES TOI, (Jesus avenge thyself). 




PRADANACK CROSS, MULLYON. 

Height $ feet 3 inches, breadth 2 feet 1 inch. On the reverse 
side is ca? ved in relief a plain Latiti cross. 



THE CAERTH OF CAMDEN. 195 

It was found in 1868 or '69 by Mr. J. Thomas, of 
Mullyon, on his own farm, who thus writes concerning 
it : — " I accidentally discovered it near the edge of 
the cliff on my own farm, at a place called " Men- 
tikel Point," commonly called Pradanack Head. At 
the time I was crouching under a large rock to 
shelter from a heavy shower of rain, and picked up 
the seal at my feet, the place having been trodden 
bare by the sheep getting under the rock." 

The bare hill on which it had laid so long gives 
us no assistance in discovering to whom it could 
have belonged, or the " how or why " it found its 
way to its hiding place ; that it is a seal of a pri- 
vate individual seems evident, and there are a great 
many of similar character, but bearing different 
legends, in the collection of the British Museum. 

Not very far from " Mentikel " is another relic 
of the Christian faith ; from time immemorial a 
Latin cross has stood there close to the site of an 
ancient chapel, to which in days gone by it was 
doubtless the guide ; like the oratory itself it may 
have been erected by some pious individual " pro 
anima," for the sake of his soul — 

" Stop, weary Pilgrim, stop and pray, 
For the kind soul of Sybil Grey 
Who built this cross and well." 

Sir W. Scott, 



196 THE CAERTH OF CAMDEN. 

Whether, however, the cross,* and the chapel at 
Trenance hard by, and another at Clahar, near 
Bochym, have any connection with the seal in ques- 
tion must remain still a mystery, for of them in their 
ancient condition there is no record. The fact re- 
mains that they all bear upon and around them the 
emblems of the ancient faith, of which they are at 
once the memorials and witnesses. 



* This cross, which is sculptured on both sides, is figured 
in J. T. Blight's "Ancient Crosses and other Antiquities of 
Cornwall," Plate 48 in the editions 4to, Penzance, 1856, and 
vol. ii, 1858. 



REMINISCENCES OF THE CORNISH 
LANGUAGE. 



" Pie a wra why mos, raoz, fettovv, tek,* 
Gen 'gas bedgeth gwin, ha 'gas blew melyn, 
Mos tha'n ventau, sarra whek 
Rag delkyew seve 'wra moyssy tek." 



|S may be supposed, traces of the ancient 
language spoken in Cornwall remain in 
the names of various places and people. 
Very much has been done by the Philo- 
logical Society in the way of research into this 
subject, and no learned disquisition is here in- 
tended, merely the grouping of a few notes on 
this interesting memorial of the past. 

One of the most sure preservatives of a lan- 
guage would be the use of it in the religious rites 
and ceremonies of the people. It is said to have 
been at the desire of the Cornish themselves that 
the English service was enjoined in preference to 




* The literal translation is : 

" Where do you go, pretty maid, he said, 
With your fair face and your yellow hair ? 
Going to the well, sweet sir, 
For leaves of strawberries made maidens fair. 



198 REMINISCENCES OF THE 

that of their native tongue, and this probably was 
the surest method of suppressing its use altogether, 
and rendering it in the end extinct ; while, in Wales, 
the contrary system was adopted, and it has proved 
the preservation of their language.* 

Dr. Moreman, Vicar of Menheniot, has the credit 
of being the first to teach his people to say the 
Lord's Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten Command- 
ments in the English tongue, and he " did teach 
and catechise them thereon.-f- 

Carew, in 1602, says, the principal love and 
knowledge of the language lived in Dr. Kennall, 
the civilian, and with him lyeth buried, for the Eng- 
lish speech doth still encroach upon it, and hath 



* W. Scawen's " Treatise on the Cornish Language." 
+ This Dr. Moreman is mentioned in the petition presented 
to Edward VI. by the Cornwall and Devon insurgents in 
favour of the old form of worship : " We will not receive the 
new service because it is but like a Christmas game. We 
will have our old service of Matins, Mass, Evensong, and 
Procession as it was before ; and we, the Cornish, whereof 
certain of lis understand no English, do utterly refuse the new 
service." The nth of these famous 15 articles is curious : 
" We will have ' Dr. Moreman ' and Dr. Crispin, which 
hold our opinions, to be safely sent unto us ; and to them we 
require the King's Majesty to give some certain livings, to 
preach among us our Catholic faith." If this be the Dr. 
Moreman of Menheniot it is strange that he should be among 
the first to teach his people the English service. 



CORNISH LANGUAGE. 199 

driven the same into the uttermost skirts of the 
shire. Most of the inhabitants can speak no word of 
Cornish, but very few are ignorant of the English, 
and yet some so affect their own as to a stranger 
they will not speak it ; for if meeting them by 
chance you inquire the way or any such matter, 
your answer shall be, " Mee a navidra cowza Sawz- 
neck." (I can speak no Saxonage.) 

In 1663 only one person is said to have been 
found who could write the Cornish language, but 
in 1678 a sermon was preached in Cornish by Rev. 
Mr. Robinson, Rector of Landewednack, and this 
is said to have been the last occasion on which that 
language was used in the public service of the 
church. For some time, however, the " guaries" or 
miracle plays, continued to be acted in Cornish. 

Norden, in his Survey, gives this quaint account 
of the language : — 

"The Cornish people for the moste parte are 
descended of British stocke, though muche mixed 
since with the Saxon and Norman bloude, but un- 
till of late years retayned the British speache un- 
corrupted as theirs of Wales is. For the South 
Wales man understandeth not perfectly the North. 
Wales man, and the North Wales man but little of 
the Cornish, but the South Wales man much. The 
pronounciation of the tongue differs in all, but the 



200 REMINISCENCES OF THE 

Cornish is far the easier to be pronounced. ..." 
But of late the Cornish men have conformed them- 
selves to the use of the English tongue, and their 
English is equal to the best, especially in the 
Eastern parts ; even from Truro eastward is in a 
manner wholly English. In the weste parte of the 
county, as in the hundreds of Penwith and Kerrier, 
the Cornishe tongue is mostly in use, and yet it is 
to be marvelled that though husband and wife, 
parents and children, master and servauntes, doe 
mutually communicate in their native language, 
yet there is none of them but in manner is able to 
converse with a stranger in the English tongue un- 
less it be some obscure persons that seldom con- 
verse with the better sort." 

In the time of the Civil War (1644) there is an 
entry in the diary of one of the Royalist soldiers 
to the effect that " The language is spoken alto- 
gether at Goonhilly (in Meneage, not far from the 
Lizard), and about Pendennis and the Land's End 
they speak no English. All beyond Truro they 
speak the Cornish language." 

In 1707, Dr. Ed. Lhuyd gives a list of parishes 
in which the language was then spoken, and this 
list includes Gunwalloe but not Cury, and he adds 
that many of the inhabitants of these parishes, 
especially the gentry, do not understand it, " tliere 



CORNISH LANGUAGE. 201 

being no need, as every Comisliman speaks Eng- 
lish!' 

The famous Dolly Pentreath, whose monument 
in Paul Churchyard nearly every Penzance visitor 
must know, is popularly supposed to have been 
the last person who, in the words of the celebrated 
Peter Pindar, "jabbered Cornish." 

But if the language itself be dead, its influence 
is clearly perceptible in the modes of thought and 
expression of the country people, and especially 
those of West Barbarary : — 

Tummuls — heaps. Croggans — limpets. Maund — 
a basket. Cheeld vean — a little child. Pure — fine, 
good, well, as, eg., " a pure boy enough that ;" the 
quaint use of the verb " to do," as " they do say." 
for " they say." 

Belong — " I belong working" to Gunwalloe. 

Brave — Much, good, well ; as, How be you ? 
Bravish ! " It's a brave long way to So-and-so." 
" Pepys walked to RedrifTe by ' brave 'moonshine." 
Sep. 19, 1662. 

Clome — Earthenware. 

Crowd— K fiddle ; to play is to " Crowdy." 

Fit — Prepare. " Fit ee a cup o' tea ?" 

Flasket — A linen basket. 

Helling stone — Roofing stone, flat stone. 



202 REMINISCENCES OF THE 

" His howse were unhiled, 
And full i yvel dight." 

{Coke's tale of '" Gamely '//.") 

To hell the building is to cover it, slate it in. 

Keenly — Having a favourable appearance. " A 
brave keenly crop." 

Plum — Soft. Dough is said to be plum when 
raised with yeast. 

A farmer near the Lizard,* who was confined to 
his bed by illness, and complained of a distension 
of his stomach, heard to his horror that a pitcher 
of yeast had been accidentally upset into the well 
from which came the water he had drank. " Then," 
he cried, "that explains my complaint — I'm plum- 
ming." 

The Piskies, or Pixies, are a Cornish folk peculiar 
in themselves, only noticed here, as the indifferent 
pronunciation of the word is analogous to that of 
hogshead, as often used "hosgead." One old fisher 
explained, when asked how many hogsheads of 
pilchards the catch contained : " Ted'na hogshead 
I tell ee.' Tes' a hosged. Who ever heerd tell o' a 
pig's head full of pilchards ? Tes' a hosged." 



* Related by Thomas Garland in a paper contained in the 
"Journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall," Vol. I., April, 
1865, p. 51. 



CORNISH LANGUAGE. 203 

Scat — Split or burst ; hence to " scat," or be 
bankrupt. 

Wisht — Melancholy, forlorn. No English syno- 
nym is expressive enough for the meaning of this 
word. 

Latimer uses it (Sermons, Parker ed., p. 
115.)* 

"And when they perceived that Solomon, by 
the advice of his father, was anointed King, by 
and by there was all whisht, — all their good cheer 
was done." 

A person looking ill and sorrowful is said to be 
" looking wisht." 

A miner killed by accident, and having a large 
family, would be a " wisht thing." 

One correspondent suggests as the equivalent 
the " desiderium " grief for a lost friend of Horace; 
" Quis desiderio sit pudor aut modus 
Tarn cari capitis ?" 
All this is included in " Wisht!' but that is not 
enough for this expressive and simple term." 

Up-raising — Applied to thanksgiving in the 



* "Journal Royal Inst., Cornwall," March, 1864,^25. "A 
List of Obsolete Words," by T. O. Couch, which, however* 
are not all obsolete, as many of the above list are included in 
his catalogue, and these are all common enough still in West 
Cornwall. 



204 REMINISCENCES OF THE 

churching of women. To go to be " churched " 
is to be " up-raised." 

A plum pudding or plum cake is changed into 
figgy pudding or cake, and in the same manner 
" raisins " are called "figs" 

Every one of these words mentioned are as com- 
mon as possible in the Lizard district. 

The well-known couplet of the old writers runs : 
" By Tre, Pol, and Pen 
You shall know the Cornish men." 
And certainly there are no lack of places and 
names to verify it : Tre-gear, Tre-gavethan, Tre - 
widden, Tre-gidean, pronounced Treg-i-gian, and 
meaning " a giant's dwelling ;" the famous Tre- 
geagle, Tre-woofe, Tre-lissick, Tre-reiffe, Pol-wyn, 
Pol-withan, Pol-tre-worgie, Pol-pyze, Pol-griggons, 
and Pen-alverne, Pen-braze, Pen-callinick, or Pen- 
hallinyk. These are but specimens, for in a glossary 
of Cornish names before me at the time of writing 
this I count 1,800 names beginning with Tre, 240 
beginning with Pol, and 350 beginning with Pen. 

Tre signifies a house or dwelling. What is usually 
called in Cornwall a " town-place " is a farm-house 
and its outbuildings, and even now the village or 
cottages, few or many, gathered round the church, 
goes by the name of Church-town ; so that none 
would ever speak of the " village of Cury," but 
Cury Church-town. 



CORNISH LANGUAGE. 205 

Pol signifies a pool, and Pen a head. 
A dissertation on the etymology of Cornish 
words would be beyond our present purpose, but a 
few may be mentioned, with their corruptions, as 
more particularly striking to the outsider and 
tourist. 

There is, for instance, " Tol Pedn Penwith," the 
holed headland in Penwith ; " Zawn Pyg," a holed 
cave or cavern in the same locality ; " Pen au cwm 
cuic," the head of the creek valley, has degenerated 
into "Penny come quick," and given rise to a 
curious story concerning Falmouth. 

" Cwm ty coed," "the valley of the wood-house," 
has become " Come to good ;" and in the Scilly 
Isles a very fine rock there, the " Men an Vor," or 
great rock, is generally called the Man-o'-War, 
although there is nothing resembling a vessel 
about it. 

Some of the names are quite poetical. 
Als-y-farn, pronounced Halzephron, is a bold 
and lofty cliff fronting the great Western Ocean, 
and it has been taken literally Als, a cliff, Zephy- 
ron, western ; but it has also been interpreted Als, 
a cliff, and Y-farn ifarn, infcnms, the hellish cliff, or 
deep as hell. 

Goonhilly has received a picturesque and his- 
torical interpretation. Situated in the centre of 
Meneg, and abounding with hares, it was anciently 



206 REMINISCENCES OF THE 

a favourite place for coursing ; hence Goon, a down ; 
and hellia, to hunt — Hunting down. 

These are curious in their pronunciations and 
meanings, and their connection with a now dead 
language ; but what shall be said of the curiosity 
of a pronunciation such as belongs to a farm in 
Cury, named Millewarne, pronounced by one and 
all " Bellorian." 

The antiquity of the Tre Pol and Pen is to be 
seen in Andrew Borde's " Book of Knowledge " 
(1542), in a few of the Cornish proverbs : — 
" My bedaver wyl to London to try the law, 
To sue Tre Pol and Pen for wagging of a 
straw." 
" Better a clout than a hole out." 
" More rain more rest, more water will suit the 
ducks best." 

" Cornwall will bear a shower every day, and 
two on Sunday." 

" Cross a style, and a gate hard by, 

You'll be a widow before you die." 
" A Saturday or a Sunday moon 

Comes once in seven years too soon." 
"With one child you may walk, with two you 
may ride ; 
When you have three at home you must bide." 
" Those that cannot work must planny, and those 



CORNISH LANGUAGE. 



207 



that cannot planny must lowster " (i.e., hard manual 
labour). 

It will amuse, and may interest some readers, to 
see a good specimen of the Cornish language at 
different periods, and that appended is taken from 
a paper read by Henry Jenner, Esq., before the 
Philological Society in 1873 : — 

SPECIMENS OF THE CORNISH LANGUAGE AT 

VARIOUS PERIODS. 

15th century {the end of the play , Origo Mundi). 

His blessing to you wholly 
As well to men and women 

(And to) children ; 
The play is done now, 
And to see the passion 
Of Jesus without delay 
Which Christ suffered for us> 
To-morrow come in time ; 
And go all (of you) home. 
In the name of the Father, 
minstrels, I pray, 



Y vennath theugh yn tyen 
Keffrys gorryth ha benen . 

Flogholeth 
An guare yu due lymmyn 
Ha the welas an passyon 
A Jhesus hep gorholeth 
A worthevys Crys ragon 
A vorowe deug a dermyn 

Hag eus pub dre 
A barth a'nTas, Menstrel a ras 

Pebough whare. 



Pipe at once. 
Early ijth centitry {the end of J or darts " Creation "). 



Dewhe a vorowe a dermyn 

Why a weall matters pur vras 
Ha redempcon grauntys 
Der vercy a Thew an Tase 
Tha sawya neb es kellys 
Menstrels, growgh theny peba 
May hallan warbarthe down- 
ssya 
Dell ew an vanar ha'n 
geys. 



Come to-morrow in time, 
You shall see matters very 

great 
And redemption granted 
Through the mercy of God 

the Father 
To save him who is lost. 
Minstrels, do to us pipe, 
That we may together dance, 
As is the manner and the 

sport (guise). 



208 



REMINISCENCES OF THE 



Circ. 1700 {from a Cornish story given by Uiuyd and Pryce), 



Ha pa tera dinad an vledan 
e vester a disquedaz daedo an 
trei pens. " Mir, Dzhuan," 
med e vester, " ybma de gu- 
ber ; bez mar menta rei dem 
arta,me a deskadiz ken pointa 
skians." " Dreu hedna," med 
Dzhuan. " Na," med e ves- 
ted, " rei dem, ha me a vedn 
laveral diz." " Kemeren dan," 
med Dzhuan. " Nanna," med 
e vester, " Kamer with na rey 
gara an vor goth rag an vor 
noweth." Enna dshei a var- 
gidniaz rag bledan moy rag 
pokar guber. 



And when the year was 
done, his master shewed to 
him the three pounds. " See, 
John," said his master, "here 
is thy pay ; but if thou wilt 
give it to me again, I will 
teach thee a point of wis- 
dom." " Bring it here," said 
John. " No," said his master, 
" give it to me, and I will tell 
thee." " Take it to thee," said 
John. " Then," said his mas- 
ter, " take care not to leave 
the old road for the new 
road." Then they bargained 
for a year more for the same 



pay. 
1776 {the Letter of William Bodenor). 



Bluth vee ewe try egance 
ha pemp Theatra vee dean 
boadjack an poscas, me rig 
deskys Cornouack termen me 
vee maw. Me vee de more 
gen cara vee a pemp dean 
moy en cock, me rig scant- 
lower clowes eden ger Sows- 
nack cowes en cock rag sythen 
war bar. No rig a vee biscath 
gwellas lever Cornuack. Me 
deskey Cornouack mous da 
mor gen tees coath. Nag es 
moy vel pager pe pemp en 
dreau nye ell classia Cornish 
leben,poble coath pager egance 
blouth. Cornouack ewe all 
neceaves ven poble younck. 



My age is threescore and 
five, I am a poor fisherman, I 
did learn Cornish when I was 
a boy. I was at sea with my 
father and five men more in a 
boat, I did scarcely hear one 
word of English spoken in the 
boat for a week together. I 
have not ever seen a Cornish 
book. I learnt Cornish going 
to sea with old folk. There 
are not more than four or five 
in our town can speak Cornish 
now, old people of fourscore 
years. Cornish is all forgot, 
ten by young people. 



CORNISH LANGUAGE. 209 

King Charles' Letter is known to most of us 
only in the fanciful sketches of it, occasionally to 
be seen in those churches where it has been allowed 
to remain a fixture on the wall, a memorial of a 
people's loyalty and a King's gratitude : — 
CORNISH TEXT. 

An woolak da disquethye an Pow Kernow ganz y broste- 
reth an kense mightern Charles ef boz gwithys in disque- 
thyans es umma sywya, dewelas ; — 

Charles Mightern. 

Ytho ny mar ughell kemerys gans an pethyw moigh vel 
mear pernys theworth ny ganz agan Pow Kernow, an kirense 
y the gwitha saw agan honan, han gwyr composter agan 
curyn (en termyn a alga ny dry mar nebas tha gan sawder, 
po aga gwerthas y ; yn termyn pan 11a oyagh gober vyth boz 
gwelys, mez wherriow braz peroghas gowsas gerriow tyn 
erbyn gwylvry ha kolonnow leall) aga braz hag ughell kolonn- 
wik ha ga perthyans heb squithder yth mar vraz wheal erbyn 
mar cref tus a drok scoothyes gans mar [a completely illegible 
word] trevow leun a tuz, ha mar tek teklys gans clethyow, 
arghans, dafyr lathysa, ha kenyver ehan a vooz daber, ha 
gans an merthus sawynyans o both Dew Olgallousek (saw 
ganz coll a van tuz a bryz neb ny vyth nefra ganz ny ankevys) 
the talviga ga kolonnow leall ha ga perthyans mysk leas 
merthus omdowlow war tuz a drok thens y ha ny en ate[l] ol 
pederyans mab-den hag ol an drokter alga boz kevys, kepari 
ny yll ny ankevy mar vraz galarow, yndella ny yll ny buz 
gawas bonogate da the kaws da anothans then bys, ha perricof 
yn oil termyn aga oberrow da, han kemeryans da ny anothans 
Ha rag henna theren ry agan mighterneth gorseans then 
Pow na gans an ughella lef, ha en forth a ell moygha dyrria 
hag a ellen kawaz mez. Ha theren ry' ger fatel reysthan ha 
vatorow a hemma boz screfys ganz oleow horen ha danvenys 
a leaz ha pregowthyes yn minz egliz ha Ian es enna ha boz 

P 



210 REMINISCENCES OF THE 

gwethys enna bys ricar yn cef, pella (mar pell tra clap an 
terminnyow ma han wlas dyrrya) an cof kemmys es pernys 
theworthan ny han curyn ny gans an Pow na boz tennys 
meas than meghes es tha denethy. 

Reys yn gwent milchamath ny yn Castell Sudley yn dek- 
vas dyth mys Heddra in blethan myll whegh cans dewghans 
ha try. 

LITERAL TRANSLATION. 

The good regard shewn to the county of Cornwall by his 
Majesty the first King Charles may be read in the declaration 
that is here following, videlicet : — 

Charles King. 

We are so highly taken with the more than great things 
[order, moigh vel mear pethyw] taken towards us by our 
county of Cornwall, the love of them to guard our person, 
and the true fitness of our Crown (at a time [when] we could 
bring so little to our safety or their help, at a time when not 
any reward might be seen, but bitter great dangers spoke 
harsh words against obedience and loyal hearts), their great 
and high courage and their patience without weariness in so 
great work against so strong enemies [tus a drok ; lit., people 
of evil], backed by so [the Cornish word is illegible] towns, 
full of people and so fairly furnished with weapons (lit., 
swords), money, space (lit., convenience of placing), and 
every sort (of thing) to be eaten, and by the wonderful saving 
of the will of God Almighty (but with the loss of high people 
of worth who will not ever be by us forgotten) to reward their 
loyal hearts and their patience with many wonderful victories 
(lit., throws, a wrestling term) over enemies to them and us, 
in spite of all probability of the sons of men and of all the 
evil that could be imagined ; that as we cannot forget so 
great pains, so we cannot but have good will to speak well of 
them to the world, and to remember in all time their good 
works, and the good reception of us to them : And for that 
(end) we do make our royal honour to that county, with the 



CORNISH LANGUAGE. 211 

highest voice and in the way that can most endure that we 
can find good. And we do make word how the reason and 
matters of this be written with oil-iron (i.e., printed) and sent 
abroad and read in every church and chapel that is there, 
and be kept there for a record of the same, that (so long as 
the report of these times and country endure) the remem- 
brance of how much is held towards us and our Crown by 
that county may be held good to the children that are to be 
born (i.e., to posterity). 

Given at our camp of war in Castle Sudley the loth day 
of the month of October in the year 1643. 

NOTES. 

Page 209, line 11. — YtJw ny should be ython ny. This is 
an old form, found in the Cornish Dramas, but which would 
hardly have been in use as late as the 17th century. 

Line 14. — Alga, a late form of alse (the mutation of galse, 
a alga ny — we were able. The g is soft, so it should have 
been written alja. 

Line 14. — Gan, a late form of agan (our). 

Line 15. — Gwerthas, for gweres, orgweras (Welsh, gwared). 
This insertion of th occurs again in the case of merthus 
(line 22) for vierys. 

Line 16. — Peroghas, for peroglas (Welsh, perygl ; Latin 
periculum). 

Line 18. — Squithder. The usual Cornish form is sqtiythens, 
but the translator seems to have taken the Breton skitizder 
pronounced in some' parts of Brittany squidhder). 

Line 19. — Scoothyes, a participle formed from scouth(Com. 
Vocab., 1 8th cent, scuid), a shoulder ; hence equivalent to 
the English " backed." I have never met with the verb else- 
where. 

Line 20. — Teklys, probably from takel, a thing or instru- 
ment, hence "furnished ;" does not occur elsewhere. 

Line 24. — Talviga, formed from talves (worth, of value). 
The g is soft ; does not occur elsewhere, the usual verb being 
taly or dal. 



212 REMINISCENCES OF THE 

Line 2%.—Perricof, for per thy cof—Xo hold remembrance. 

Lines 30 and 32. — Theren for deren, a late form of the 
present (1st pers. pi.) of gurthil, to do; originally gwren 
(by mutation 'wren, with the w hardly heard), with the inten- 
sive prefix de. 

Line yi.—Mez> for mas (orig. mad, as in Breton), good. 

In the date the translator has used " Gwent milchamath " 
(lit. plain of war) to signify " camp," and for some unaccount- 
able reason, probably from a vague idea about Phoenicians, 
has introduced the Hebrew word ri^Pl^D (milchamath), as 

t t : • 

an equivalent for " war," though he had a very good Cornish 
word {cos. Welsh, cad ; Irish, cat) ready to hand. As the 
copy of this letter in the Museum MS. is in Keigwin's hand, 
and he, according to his epitaph, composed by William 
Gwavas (published in Borlase's History, &c), was a Hebrew 
scholar, the presence of this word in a piece of Cornish is 
not of the smallest value in support of either the Phoenician 
theory or of the Jewish one (founded on an erroneous 
etymology or Marazion, &c), for, in common with most 
Celtic philologers of his date, he was probably infected with 
one or both of these crazes. 

Remarks. 

This translation of the letter of King Charles the 
Martyr to the people of Cornwall is written (very 
illegibly) in the hand of John Keigwin, a man well 
known to all students of Cornish as the translator 
of Jordan's play of " The Creation of the World " 
and of the old 1 5 th century poem of the " Passion." 
The language used is the vulgar Cornish of the 17th 
and 1 8th century, but it is so much diversified with 
forms of an earlier date that it is very doubtful if 



CORNISH LANGUAGE. 213 

the uneducated Cornish-speaking population of 1643 
would have understood it very readily. The use of 
a Hebrew word (see Notes) and of what may be 
called archaic forms seems to point to its being the 
work of Keigwin himself. Now, as he was born in 
1 641, this cannot of course be an official transla- 
tion, though it is probable that one was made at 
the time of the publication of the English version, 
seeing that (according to Symonds' Diary of the 
Civil War) the Cornish language was then very 
generally spoken in the extreme west, and in some 
places to the exclusion of English. 

The archaisms mentioned above are these : 

1. The occasional use of the inflected form of 
the verbs,* as in the case of ytho, a clerical error 
for ython, etc. 

2. Tus (people), the old form of spelling 
used in the poem of the "Passion" and in the 
" Ordinalia," the later spelling and probable pro- 
nunciation (following Welsh analogy) being tis 
or tees. 

3. Kirense, instead of the later form, kirenja, 
which appears as early as 1504 in the " Life of 
S. Meriasek." 

4. The use of the guttural gJi in such words as 
aghel, moygha, fleglies, etc., which in Keigwin's 

* See Norris Grammar or paper of H. Jenner. Esq., on 
the Cornish Language, for explanation of the term. 



214 CORNISH LANGUAGE. 

time, and indeed earlier, had been softened into 
h, or dropped altogether. 

The initial mutations are for the most part 
disregarded, or else used without any gram- 
matical reason, and there is a great deal of un- 
decidedness about spelling, which, however, was 
often visible in Keigwin's English (see his trans- 
lations). 




THE WEST COUNTRY FOLKS 

AND THEIR CURIOSITIES. 



In winter's tedious nights sit by the fire 
With good old folks, and let them tell the tales 
Of woful ages long ago betid.— Kg. Richard i 



|T is far from improbable that in ancient 
days the peninsula of the Mene&g was a 
well-peopled district even up to the time 
of Edward III. The extraordinary 
number of its churches would appear to warrant 
the supposition. In the country districts at the 
present day the population, from emigration and 
other causes, is surely decreasing, and it is well 
attested that the plague at various periods made 
extensive ravages through the whole county ; if we 
may judge of the number of victims in every part 
by the register, quoted by William of Worcester, 
it must have been all but decimation. 

" In registro apud Bodman ecclesiam Fratum Mi- 
norum, magna pestilencia per universam mundum, 
inter Saraenos — et postea inter Christianos ; incepit 
primo in Anglia circa kalend, Augusti, et parum 



2l6 WEST COUNTRY 

ante Nativitatem Domini intravit villam Bodminia?, 
ubi mortui fuerunt circa mille quingentos per esti- 
macionem ; et numeros fratrum defunctorum a capi- 
tulo generali Lugduniae celebratum anno Christi 
135 1. Usque ad aliud sequens capitulum gene- 
rale, fuit ac fratribus tres decern millia octingenti 
octaginta tres, exceptis sex vicariis." 

And tradition says that the estates of Hawks- 
bramble and Kiddons were annexed to the parish 
of Exminster in Devon, in recompense of its vicar's 
manly resolution in burying the dead of the 'parish 
to which those estates originally belonged. 

Certain it is that, if only a fair proportion of old 
Cornish records be true, the people of this land 
must have "been a very hardy race, worthy succes- 
sors of the giants of the mythic or the knights of 
the medieval period. 

Some of the native historians are very diffuse in 
their narratives of extraordinary instances of longe- 
vity and activity, and from them one maybe selected. 
Polwhele mentions a Mr. Cole, rector of Lan- 
dewednack, who was 120 years old when he 
died in 1683, of whom he had found the following 
memorandum : — " Thomas Cole, minister of and at 
the Lizard, went one morn on foot from the Lizard 
to Penryn, which is at least 13 miles, and returned 
again the same day on foote to Lizard, at which 



CURIOSITIES. 217 

time he was at least 120 years, and was met going 
and coming by Mr. Richard Erisey, of Erisey, as 
credible authors report." This is at least a won- 
derful performance for old age. 

One of the most notable instances of female 
strength was " The Great Betty Caddy!' or Rutter, 
of this parish of Cury. 

She is, says the historian, a very hale, tall, ath- 
letic woman, frequents the Helston markets, and is 
there a noted figure. It is with ease she lifts off 
her horse, and carries on her shoulders up the steps 
into the corn market, three (Winchester) bushels of 
wheat. 

Notwithstanding this, and much more to the 
same purpose in the records of the 'past century, 
there is a tradition* that the Lizard people were 
formerly a very inferior race. 

In fact, it is said that they went on all fours, till 
the crew of a foreign vessel, wrecked on the coast, 
settled among them, and improved the race so 
much that they became as remarkable for their 
stature and physical development as they had 
been before for the reverse. At this time, 
as a whole, the Lizard folks have certainly 



* Mentioned in Hunt's Popular Romances, 2nd series, p. 
267. 



218 WEST COUNTRY 

among them a very large proportion of tall people, 
many, both men and women, being six feet 
high. Query, may not both tradition and his- 
tory be correct — the one confirmatory of the other, 
and bearing out the tradition — the Spanish name 
of Jose is a common one in the headland. 

Of Cornwall her sons have been always proud ; 
and, if many of her battle fields are still hidden in 
the obscurity which necessarily hangs over her early 
history, enough there is to tell of Cornish prowess 
and Cornish might. Who that has crossed the 
Tamar has not heard the famous " Trelawny" song 
before he returned again, and even in the days 
of England's early kings, poets were not wanting 
to vaunt the valour and sing the praise of Arthur's 
sons ? 

Michael Blaumpayn, or Michael of Cornwall, 
who flourished about A.D. 1250, and cited by Cam- 
den as the most eminent poet of his age — i.e., the 
time of Henry III. — has well maintained his coun- 
try's honour in lines which Fuller has translated for 
us — 

Non opus est ut opes numerum quibus est opulenta, 
Et per quos inopes sustentat non ope lenta 
Piscibus et stanno nusquam tarn fertilis ora. 

We need not number up her wealthy store, 
Wherewith the helpful land relieves her poor, 
No sea so full of fish, of tin no shore. 



CURIOSITIES. 219 

And after relating how King Arthur always put 

his Cornishmen in the forefront of the battle he 

concludes — 

" Quid nos deterret, si firmiter in pede sternus ? 
Fraus ni nos superet, nihil est quod non superimus." 

" What should us fright, if firmly we do stand ? 
Bar fraud, and there's no force can us command."* 

There was a time when the Cornish people were 
not so used to the inroads of tourists as they are 
now — a time when it would have been inconceiva- 
ble to the west country mind that any sane person 
would travel about for the mere sake of seeing the 
country, though now the Lizard and Land's End 
villagers, if none others, have been thoroughly 
routed out of such a notion. 

There are curious stories extant of the contre- 
temps that befel travellers in the early part of the 
last century. 

Dr. John Randolph, afterwards Bishop of Oxford, 
being on a visit to a friend at Gwennap, and de- 
tected in the act of drawing plans and exploring 
the county, was apprehended as a spy. A Mr 
Salisbury, then of some fame as a botanist, was 
arrested while he was searching on the Goonhilly 
Downs for the well-known Erica Vagans, and was 

* Quoted in the Journal of the Royal Inst, of Cornwall, 
No. viii, Apl., 1867, p. 281. 



220 WEST COUNTRY 

brought before the magistrates at Helston. Captain 
Bligh, while surveying the harbour of Helford un- 
der the direction of the government, was seized 
and insulted by the "bargees" of the Helford 
river, under suspicion of being in correspondence 
with the enemy. 

But not only in war time was there trouble of this 
kind in store for the unwary pilgrim tourist, in peace 
there was the counter apprehension of thieves and 
robbers. 

It is related of Mr. Edward Lhuyd, the author 
of the celebrated " Archaeologia," that he came 
into the county at a time when this wide-spread 
fear was at its height. He and his three companions, 
knapsacks on their shoulders, much after the fashion 
of the modern tourist pedestrian, were travelling 
the county on foot, in the words of the historian, 
for the better searching for simples, viewing and 
taking draughts of everything remarkable, and for 
that reason prying into every hole and corner, 
and they raised a strange jealousy in a people 
already alarmed, so much so indeed that, at Hel- 
ston, as Mr. Lhuyd went about making his en- 
quiries respecting gentlemen's seats, &c, they were 
taken up as thieves, and only escaped from the 
unpleasant dilemma by producing their letter of 
introduction for the magistrate's inspection, 



CURIOSITIES. 221 

So John Taylor,* the royalist and water poet, 
relates of his expedition, in 1649, a like dilemma 
only with a happier result. He says — "9 July 
I left Stratton and ambled twenty miles to the 
town of Camelford, and to a village called 
Blistland, and there I was taken for the man I 
was not, for they suspected me to be a bringer of 
writs and processe to serve upon some gentleman 
and to bring men into trouble, but with much 
adoe I scaped a beating by beating into their be- 
lief I was no such creature." 

Lucky escape for him ! for the ancient manor of 
Blisland had jurisdiction over life and limb, and 
once hung a man for robbing the parish church. 

That they ever sustained a character for hospi- 
tality none can doubt who has ever found himself a 
traveller in the county. 

One pedestrian, in 1649, walking the county, 
though under many and manifest disadvantages, 
writes afterwards — 

Cornwall is the Cornucopia — the compleate and 
repleate Home of Abundance for high churlish hills 
and affable courteous people. They are loving to 



* This interesting character is very little known. Vide 
John Taylor's Wanderings, etc., printed at London in the 
yecre 1649. 



222 WEST COUNTRY 

requite a kindnesse — placable to remit a wrong and 
tardy to retort injuries. 

The country hath its share of huge stones, mighty 
rocks, noble free gentlemen, bountiful housekeepers, 
strong and stout men, handsome and beautiful 
women. ... In briefe, they are in most plenti- 
full manner happy in the abundance of right and 
left-hand blessings." 

Quaint phraseology, " right and left-hand bless- 
ings," but expressive enough. 

Of the domestic life of the last century in this 
favoured county there are numerous pictures drawn, 
but I give one, because it is that of a writer less known 
than many, and he describes a scene worth preserv- 
ing if only as a curious relic of the manners of the 
times. 

The narrator (Mr. Beckford) thus sketches the 
evening occupation at a house, where he was a 
guest, in 1787 — 

" A savoury pig right worthy of Otaheite, and 
some of the finest poultry I ever tasted, and round 
the table two or three brace of Cornish gentlefolks 
not deficient in humour or originality. 

"About 8 in the evening 6 game cocks were 
ushered into the eating room by 2 limber lads in 
scarlet jackets, and after a flourish of crowings, the 
noble birds set to with surprising keenness. Tufts 



CURIOSITIES. 223 

of brilliant feathers soon after flew about the apart- 
ment, but the carpet was not injured, for to do Tre- 
fusis justice he takes no pleasure in cruelty. 

11 The cocks were unarmed, had their spurs cut 
short, and may live to fight such harmless battles 
again." 

According to Carew, in his time, a gentleman 
and his wife will ride to make merry with his next 
neighbour, and after a day or two , these couples 
go to a third, and in which progress they increase 
like snowballs till, through their burdensome weight 
they break again. 



THE SUPERNATURAL. 

GOBLINS, GHOSTS, AND MERMAIDS. 



" Of witching rhymes 

And evil spirits ; of the death bed call 

Of him who robb'd the widow, and devour'd 

The orphan's portion ; of unquiet souls 

Risen from their graves to ease the heavy guilt 

Of deeds in life concealed : of shapes that walk 

At dead of night, and clank their chains, and wave 

The torch of Hell around the murderer's bed." 

Akenside. 

"In our childhood our mother's maids have so terrified us with an ugly 
devil, having horns on his head, fire in his mouth, and a tail in his 
breech, eyes like a basin, fangs like a dog, claws like a bear, a skin like 
a niger (sic), and a voyce roaring like a lyon, whereby we start, and are 
afraid when we hear one cry — Bough ! 

And they have so frayed us with bul-beggars, spirits, witches, urchins, 
elves, hags, fairies, satyrs, pans, faunes, sylens, kit with the caustick, 
tritons, centaurs, dwarfes, gyants, imps, culcars, conjurers, nymphes, 
changlings, incubus, Robin Goodfellow, the spoon, the mare, the man 
in the oak, the hellwain, the fire-drake, the puckle, Tom Thumbe, hob- 
goblin, Tom-tumbler, boneless, and such other bugs, that we are afraid 
of our ovvne shadowes, insomuch that some never fear the devil 
but in a dark night," &c— " Discovery of Witchcraft," Regd. 
Scot, 1665. 



STRONG belief in the supernatural has 
ever been a characteristic of the dwellers 
in this far west, and certainly the stores 
of narratives concerning fairies, ghosts, 
and goblins, that fill up the folk lore of west Corn- 
wall, seems to be utterly inexhaustible. 




SUPERSTITIONS. 225 

Giants, fairys, knockers, and mermaids, all come 
in for their share in the legendary literature of the 
countyside, and the parishes of Cury and Gunwal- 
loe have furnished the theme of more than one such 
story. 

It has been said — 

" The Cornish drolls are dead, each one, 
The fairies from their haunts are gone : 
There's scarce a witch in all the land, 
The world has grown so learn'd and grand." 

John Jewell, of Trevergy, would have told a dif- 
ferent tale ; for of him is related a story that is 
worth repeating — 

" I cannot tell how the truth may be, 
I say the tale as 'twas said to me." — SCOTT. 

A certain John Jewell, of Trevergy, in the parish 
of Cury, was a very superstitious man, full of dread 
of goblins, ghosts, and uncanny things of the like 
nature. 

His neighbours, the Boadens, two or three bro- 
thers, noted as stout strong lusty men in days 
when such men were more numerous than now, 
detertermined to have a practical joke at his ex- 
pense. A valley laid between their two farms, and 
John Jewell must pass their homestead on his way 
home from Helston market. 

Q 



226 SUPERSTITIONS. 

Adjoinining Millewarne was a mill, disused at 
that time, the wheel of which was detached. One 
day, as soon as farmer Jewell had left for market, 
the brothers got the huge mill wheel up the hill, 
and placing it in a convenient spot, bound 
to it bushes of furze and ferns and combustible 
branches. 

Evening came, and with the darkness came John 
Jewell. The watchers listened to his horse's steps 
as they plodded slowly homeward down the hill ; 
soon they heard Trevergy gate slam, as the farmer 
passed through to traverse the opposite hill ; then 
they set light to their novel Catherine wheel, and 
rolling it down the declivity let it run. Faster and 
faster, as it gathered speed, jump, bump, over every 
obstacle went the flaming wheel blazing on every 
side. 

John Jewell turned, and saw coming down the 
hill, as he thought, the evil one enveloped in flames 
and smoke. His imagination supplied what sight 
denied, and his fright was intensified as the ghostly 
apparition gained on him despite his horse's efforts ; 
anyhow, through the gate that barred his way, he 
smashed horse and all, and never pulled up till he 
reaches his own door fainting and half dead with 
fright. 

The next day the whole country round turned 



SUPERSTITIONS. 227 

out to see the tracks his majesty had made. They 
saw the gates smashed through by the fugitive 
farmer, and at the bottom of the hill they found 
the wheel with its burned out covering of branches 
charred and blackened. It is evident the Cornish 
farmer did not believe the description of the evil 
spirit which the poet gives — 

" I'll tell you what now of the devil ; 
He's no such horrid creature ; cloven-footed, 
Black, saucer-ey'd, his nostrils breathing tire, 
As these lying Christians make him." 

Massinger's "Virgin Martyr," 1658. 

The truth of the above story is thoroughly 
vouched for by the members of the Boaden family 
now living in Cury, and the story was itself related 
to me by the great nephews of the principal actors. 
It is akin to many of the fireside tales of the coun- 
try round ; for almost every member of the popu- 
lation is touched more or less by the fear of the 
supernatural ; and, to a stranger, the superstition 
of the Cornish is wonderful — exceeding that of 
most other counties. There has always existed 
a popular belief in mermaids. One story is trans- 
cribed here, though recorded elsewhere, because 
of its connection with Cury. It is contained in 
Hunt's " Popular Drolls and Traditions of Old 



228 THE MERMAID. 

Cornwall"* — though I have heard the same dished 
up with little etceteras of addition or emenda- 
tions more than once in my rambles through the 
west. 



The Old Man of Cury. 



' In old wive's daies that in old time did live, 
To whose odde tales much credit men did give, 
Great store of goblins, fairies, bugs, nightmares, 
Urchins and elves to many a house repairs." — Old Poem. 



More than a ioo years since, on a fine summer 
day, when the sun shone brilliantly from a cloud* 
less sky, an old man from the parish of Cury, or, 
as it was called in olden time, Corantyn, was walk- 
ing on the sands in one of the coves near the Lizard 
point. 

The old man was meditating, or at least he 
was walking onward, either thinking deeply or 
not thinking at all — that is, he was "lost in thought" 
— when suddenly he came upon a rock on which 
was sitting a beautiful girl with fair hair, so long 
that it covered her entire person. On the in-shore 
side of the rock was a pool of the most transpa- 



* And also related in Traditions and Hearthside Stories of 
West Cornwall. 



THE MERMAID. 229 

rent water, which had been left by the receding 
tide in the sandy hollow the waters had scooped out 
The young creature was so absorbed in her occu- 
pation — arranging her hair in the watery mirror, 
or in admiration of her own lovely face, that she 
was unconscious of an intruder. 

The old man stood looking at her for some 
time ere he made up his mind how to act. At 
length he resolved to speak to the maiden. 

" What cheer, young one ?" he said, " what art 
thee doing there by thceself, then, this time of day." 
As soon as she heard the voice she slid off the 
rock entirely" under the water. The old man could 
not tell what to make of it. He thought the girl 
would drown herself, so he ran on to the rock to 
render her assistance, conceiving that in her fright 
at being found naked by a man she had fallen 
into the pool, and possibly it was deep enough 
to drown her. He looked into the water, and 
sure enough, he could make out the head and 
shoulders of a woman, and long hair floating like 
fine seaweeds all over the pond, hiding what appeared 
to him to be a fish's tail. 

He could not, however, see anything distinctly, 
owing to the abundance of hair floating around the 
figure. The old man had heard of mermaids from 
the fishermen of Gunwalloe, so he conceived this 



230 THE MERMAID. 

lady must be one, and he was at first very much 
frightened. He saw that the young lady was quite 
as much terrified as he was, and that from shame 
or fear she endeavoured to hide herself in the cre- 
vices of the rock and bury herself under the sea- 
weeds. 

Summoning courage, at last the old man addressed 
her, " Don'tee be afraid my de-ear, you needn't mind 
me. I wouldn't do ye any harm. I'm an old 
man, and wouldn't hurt ye any more than your 
grandfather." 

After he had talked in this soothing strain for 
some time the young lady took courage, and raised 
her head above the water. She was crying bitterly, 
and, as soon as she could speak, she begged the old 
man to go away. 

" I must know, my dearie, something about ye, 
now I have caught ye. It is not every day that 
an old man catches a merrymaid, and I have heard 
some strange tales of you water ladies. Now, my 
dear, don'tee be afraid, I wouldn't hurt a single 
hair of that beautiful head. How came ye here ?" 

After some further coaxing she told the old man 
the following story : — She "and her husband and 
little ones had been busy at sea all the morning, 
and they were very tired with swimming in the 
hot sun ; so the merman proposed that they should 



THE MERMAID. 23 1 

retire to a cavern which they were in the habit of 
visiting in Kynance Cove. Away they all swam, 
and entered the cavern at mid-tide. As there was 
some nice soft weed, and the cave was deliciously 
cool, the merman was disposed to sleep, and told 
them not to wake him until the rise of the tide. 
He was soon fast asleep, snoring most lustily. The 
children crept out, and were playing on the lovely 
sands ; so the mermaid thought she should like to 
look at the world a little. 

She looked with delight at the children rolling 
to and fro in the shallow waves, and she laughed 
heartily at the crabs fighting in their own funny 
way. " The scent from the flowers came down over 
the cliffs so sweetly," said she, " that I longed to 
get nearer the lovely things which yielded those 
rich odours, and I floated on from rock to rock 
until I came to this one, and finding that I could 
not proceed any further, I thought I would seize 
the opportunity of dressing my hair." 

She passed her fingers through those beautiful 
locks, and shook out a number of small crabs 
and much broken sea-weed. She went on to say 
that she had sat on the rock amusing herself, until 
the voice of a mortal terrified her, and until then 
she had no idea that the sea was so far out, and 
a long dry bar of sand between her and it. 






232 THE MERMAID. 

"What shall I do! What shall I do! Oh, I'd 
give the world to get out to sea. Oh, oh, what 
shall I do!" 

The old man endeavoured to console her; but 
his attempts were in vain. She told him her hus- 
band would " carry on " most dreadfully if he 
woke and found her absent, and he would be cer- 
tain of awaking at the turn of the tide, as that 
was his dinner time. He was very savage when 
he was hungry, and would as soon eat the chil- 
dren as not if there was no food at hand. He 
was also dreadfully jealous, and if she was not at 
his side when he awoke, he would at once sus- 
pect her of having run off with some other mer- 
man. She begged the old man to bear her out to 
sea. If he would but do so, she would procure 
him any three things he could wish for. Her en- 
treaties at length prevailed ; and, according to 
her desire, the old man knelt down on the rock 
with his back towards her. She clasped her fair 
arms around his neck, and locked her long finny 
fingers together on his throat. He got up from the 
rock with his burden, and carried the mermaid 
thus across the sands. As she rode in this way, 
she asked the old man to tell her what he desired. 

" I will not wish," said he, " for silver or gold, but 
give me the power to do good to my neighbours ; 



THE MERMAID. 233 

first, to break the spells of witchcraft ; next, to 
charm away diseases; and thirdly, to discover thieves 
and restore stolen goods." 

All this she promised he should possess ; but he 
must come to a half-tide rock on another day, and 
she would instruct him how to accomplish the three 
things he desired. They had reached the water ; 
and, taking her comb from her hair, she gave it 
to the old man, telling hirn he had but to comb the 
water and call her at any time, and she would come to 
him. The mermaid loosened her grasp ; and, slid- 
ing off the old man's back into the sea, she waved 
him a kiss and disappeared. At the appointed time 
the old man was at the half-tide rock — known to 
the present time as the Mermaid's Rock — and duly 
was he instructed in many mysteries. 

Amongst others he learned to break the spells of 
witches from man or beast ; to prepare a vessel of 
water, in which to shew to any one who had pro- 
perty stolen the face of the thief; to charm shin- 
gles, tetters, St. Anthony's fire, and St. Vitus's dance, 
and he learnt also the mysteries of bramble leaves, 
and the like. 

The mermaid had a woman's curiosity, and she 
persuaded her old friend to take her to some secret 
place from which she could see more of the dry 
land, and of the funny people who lived on it, 



234 THE MERNAID. 

"and had their tails split, so that they could 
walk." 

On taking the mermaid back to the sea, she 
wished her friend to visit her abode, and promised 
even to make him young if he would do so, which 
favour the old gentleman respectfully declined. A 
family, well known in Cornwall, have for some ge- 
nerations exercised the power of charming. They 
account for the possession of this power in the man- 
ner related. Some remote great-grandfather was 
the individual who received the mermaid's comb, 
which they retain to the present day, and show as 
evidence of the truth of their being supernaturally 
endowed. 

Some people are unbelieving enough to say the 
comb is only a part of a shark's jaw. Sceptical 
people are never loveable people. 

" Such is life !— 
The distant prospect always seems more fair, 
And when attained another still succeeds, 
Far fairer than before, yet compassed round 
With the same dangers and the same dismay : 
And we poor pilgrims in the dreary maze, 
Still discontented, chase the fairy form 
Of unsubstantial happiness, to find, 
When life itself is sinking in the strife, 
'Tis but an airy bubble and a cheat ! " 

Henry Kirke White. 



TRADITIONS, OLD CUSTOMS, AND 
SUPERSTITIONS. 



" Though motley images you weave, 

Yet mingle with them something clear , 

'Mid much that's false, and may deceive, 
Let some small sparks of truth appear." 

Goethe's " Faust. 

" Who shall tellen a tale after a man, 

He mote rehearse as nye as ever he can : 

Or else he mote tellen his tale untrue, 
Or feine things, or find words new." 

Chaucer. 



HAT the Cornish as a race are a very 
superstitious people,* no one who knows 
anything at all of them will for a moment 
doubt. It would take far too long to 
tell even a list of the common beliefs in the super- 
natural. The charms and superstitious customs of 
Cornwall would make a book themselves ; but there 

* An instance may be mentioned to the point. A corre- 
spondent in the West Briton newspaper, Jan. 4, 1867, signing 
himself " Tre," mentions that in the latter part of the last 
century a wealthy farmer was offered the estate of Bochym 
at a very moderate price, but he refused to purchase, on 
account of the name " Bochim," the vale of weeping, though 
the meaning and derivation of the word is a moot point. 
This incident, if true, tends to illustrate the popular super- 
stition of the West. 




236 TRADITIONS AND 

are a few that deserve to be remembered here, as 
still observed among the country folk, though slowly 
disappearing before the materialistic opinions of a 
matter-of-fact age. 

Every one who has travelled in Cornwall will 
recollect the large number of magpies seen, often- 
times many together. It is due to the veneration 
paid to the pied bird by the unlearned mind, which 
devoutly believes in omens, though it is difficult to 
arrive at a just conclusion as to the orthodox mag- 
pie creed, inasmuch as I have heard both of the 
following quoted in West Barbary : — 

To see one magpie bodes no good but rather 
bad luck ; two, good fortune ; three, a " berrin ;" 
four, a wedding ; and the old Derbyshire couplet 
is also common : 

One is a sign of sorrow ; two are a sign of mirth ; 

Three are a sign of a wedding ; and four are a sign of a birth. 

While to kill a magpie is to commit an outrage not 
easily forgiven by the Cornish yokel. 

In " Notes and Queries,"* is mentioned that, in 
some parts of Cornwall, some branches of seaweed, 
dried and fastened in turned wooden stands, are 
set up as ornaments on the chimney-piece, &c, and 
thus the poor people suppose they preserve the 

* Vol. III., p. 206. 



OLD CUSTOMS. 237 

house from fire, while they are known by the name 
of " Lady's Trees," in honour of the Virgin Mary. 

While I question the last inference, it is yet a 
fact that such trees of seaweed are placed in the 
houses as ornaments. I myself have seen them in 
the parish of Gunwalloe. 

It was always considered an extremely unlucky 
thing, and sure to bring misfortune, to remove the 
stones or cromlechs that abound in the fields and 
highways ; and one only regrets that this of all the 
local superstitions has not penetrated to the present 
day ; had it done so, we should have to mourn the 
loss and mutilation of fewer of the memorials of 
the early ages than now is the case ; but in Borlase's 
time the islanders at Scilly looked upon him with 
anything but favour* as he went about among 
them exploring their barrows and mounds, for he 
roused the giants, so they said, provoking them to 
exert their baneful influence, and in thus disturbing 
their graves was the cause of the failure of crops, 
and indeed every other evil that came to the 
affrighted Scillomans. 

Now-a-days the difficulty is to preserve anything 
of an antiquarian character, though it must in fair- 
ness be said there are some remnants of the old 

* Borlase's " Scilly Islands," p. 32, et seq. 



238 TRADITIONS AND 

superstition respecting stones and cromlechs re- 
maining, for I have heard occasionally from the 
more elderly among the old inhabitants how un- 
lucky it is and must ever be to the farmer, to dis- 
turb the upright stones so often found upon the 
land. 

Reference has been made in a previous chapter 
to the superstitions respecting the medicinal pro- 
perties of the ash-tree in effecting a cure on weakly 
children. 

There is one charm, among the many, for sciatica, 
which, common in Devonshire, near Exmoor, I have 
nevertheless heard of in Cornwall, though nowhere 
else. It is the " bone-shave." 

The patient should lie on his back on the bank 
of a brook or stream of water, placing a straight 
stick or staff by his side full length betwixt him 
and the water, the following words being repeated 
near him : — 

Bone-shave right, 

Bone-shave straight, 

As the water runs by the stave, 

Good for the Bone- shave. 

With faith (?) a perfect cure is the result. 

There are many charms for sciatica common to 
Devon and Cornwall — the knuckle-bone of a leg 
of mutton, a raw potato, a piece of loadstone ; 
either of these carried in the trouser pocket or 



OLD CUSTOMS. 239 

round the neck is a cure. But the bone-shave cer- 
tainly surpasses these in curiosity. 

While these pages were preparing for the press, 
a curious instance of the prevailing faith in charms 
occurred to the writer. The child of a poor woman, 
in one of the poorest districts of Truro, was scalded 
dreadfully by turning over a kettle of boiling water 
upon itself. The writer was sent for, and recom- 
mended its removal to the infirmary, or certain 
simple remedies. The advice was declined, as the 
mother had just had the child charmed by a pro- 
fessional charmer hard by, and was quite sure no 
ill effect would therefore ensue. 

In the works of John Heiwood, newlie imprinted, 

1598, is the following charm : — 

I claw'd her by the backe in way of a charme, 
To do me not the more good, but the less harme. 

Some of the customs in connection with Holy 
Wells are mentioned in the chapter on Gunwalloe, 
p. 182 ; and though the practice of consulting these 
sainted streams is dying out, they are intensely in- 
teresting as being relics of ancient divination, trans- 
mitted from age to age in Cornwall. 

Indeed, in old times, great must have been the 
veneration paid to the deities presiding over the 
elements, if we judge by the remains of ancient 
customs. 



240 TRADITIONS AND 

To " whistle for the wind " is the result of the 
ancient belief that the whistling will call up spirits 
of the air to aid the progress of winnowing the 
corn. 

The bonfires* kindled on the eves of S. John 
Baptist and S. Peter's Day, when the people go 
from village to village bearing lighted torches, 
form another link which connects the present with 
the past. 

Midsummer, the time when these rejoicings are 
held, is called by the Cornish folk Goluan, which 
means " light and rejoicing," and other remnants 
of ancient fire-worship are to be found in the Cam 
Leskqz, or burning rocks, of which there are seve- 
ral, one on the Bonython estate in Cury. 

The rejoicings of the ancients at the approach 
of spring are perpetuated in these days by the 
modern Cornish, who, on the 1st May, deck the 
doors and porches of their houses with boughs of 
trees, and plant boughs before their houses ; but 
these observances culminate in the Furry or Flora 
at Helston on 8th May, which is perhaps THE most 
popular of the ancient festivals. 

More than one writer on these ancient customs 
bears witness that, fifty years ago, these Maypole 

* Borlase's ''Antiquities," p. 130. Polwhele, Vol. I., p. 49. 



OLD CUSTOMS. 241 

dances of May were common in West Corn- 
wall, and were carried on at a still later date in the 
eastern part of the county. 

As to the word Furry, there is much difference 
of opinion. Some think it comes from the expres- 
sion in the Furry song — 

" They both are gone to fair — Of 
others that it is derived from 4>zp<», to carry ; and 
the rites of the Furry curiously do correspond 
with the AvOeo-cfiopia f a Sicilian festival, so named 
a™ rov fapeiv av9ea, or " from carrying flowers, in 
commemoration of the rape of Proserpine, whom 
Pluto carried off as she was gathering flowers — 
" herself a fairer flower /" * 

At any rate, the 8th May at Helston is ushered 
in by music of drums and kettles (so says Polwhele, 
a modern band, however, has succeeded the ancient 
music), and the day is given up to general holiday- 
making. In the forenoon, the revellers beinggathered 
together, they all fade into the country (fade being 
an old English word for go), and return with flowers 
and sprigs of oak. A procession is then formed of 
a company of dancers, and they dance hand-in-hand 
through the streets right round the town, going into 
every house as they pass along, in one door, out the 

* Potter's "Antiquities," Vol. I. "Gent's Mag.," Vol. LX., 
pp. 520, 875, 1 100. Polwhele, Vol. I., p. 41. 

R 



242 



TRADITIONS AND 



other. They are accompanied by a band (which 
has ousted the ancient fiddle) playing a particular 
tune called the Furry Song. 

Two or three processions are made up during the 
afternoon, and the proceedings conclude by a 
ball in the evening, at which the whole neighbour- 
hood assists, the festivities being kept up all over the 
town till late. 

The tune for the Furry dance is said to be a 
remnant of British music, and one very like it, if 
not the same, is known in Ireland. It is preserved 
in "Musical and Poetical Relics of the Welsh Bards," 
by Edward Jones, and the following will give some 
notion of the air as played in Helston streets every 
8th of May to the present time : — 



Con 8pirito. 



m 



i^s 



^ 



a 



Cfir i egcrc -g" i u* S B 



m 



The chorus seems to be a translation of the 
original song, and simply expresses joy at the 



OLD CUSTOMS. 243 

departure of the winter and incoming of the 
spring : — 

And we were up as soon as any day — O ! 

And for to fetch the summer home — 

The summer and the May— O ! 

For summer is a come — O ! 

And winter is a gone- -O ! 

In the more remote corners of the county are 
still found similar customs and remembrances 
among the older people of others which have 
become obsolete — the sprinkling of the apple-tree 
with cider,* the holding up a " neck " of corn at 
end of harvest, and the church ale, as it was 
called, are all remnants of these — 
With the past and with the present 

Quaint old manners still are link'd ; 
Olden customs, grave and pleasant, 

Ling'ring still, though nigh extinct. — C. T. C 

One of the most curious and inexplicable cus- 
toms among the tinners of the west (though said 
to be common among the agricultural people of 
Bodmin and also the Padstow fishing population)-)- 
is that of keeping Paul's Pitcher Day (Jan. 24). 
On the eve of the Feast of S. Paul, a water 
pitcher is set up and pelted with stones until 

* Also a Devonshire custom. See " Long Ago/' pp. 158, 
128; Polwhele, Vol. I., p. 48. 

t Tinner's "Folk Lore," by T. A. Couch, in "Journal 
Royal Inst.," Vol. II., p. 131. 



244 TRADITIONS AND OLD CUSTOMS. 

smashed to atoms. The revellers then adjourn to 
the neighbouring tavern, where a new pitcher re- 
places the old one, is repeatedly filled and emptied, 
and the evening given up to merriment and enjoy- 
ment. This festival seems to be intended, in a rough 
and ready way, to commemorate the first conver- 
sion of tin ore into metal — in other words, the 
discovery of smelting. 




THE MANOR OF WYNYANTON. 



We wander, alter, dye, 
Oh ! what a vapour, bubble, puffe of berath, 
A neast of wormes, a lumpe of pallid earth, 
Is mudwald man ; before we mount on high, 
Wee cope with change, we wander, alter, dye. 

{Old anagram in Pelynt. Ch.) 



|HE struggles of the primitive Britons for 
centuries with varying success against 
their conquerors, Saxons, Danes, Saxons, 
and finally the Normans, came to an end 
on Oct. 14, 1066, at the battle of Hastings. 

At that time Condorus, or Cadocus, a prince of 
the royal British blood, was Earl or King of Corn- 
wall, and neither Saxon nor Dane had ever de- 
throned him* 

The Norman Conqueror immediately displaced 
the last of the British earls in favour of his half- 
brother, Count Robert of Moretaigne in Normandy, 
to whom, in the disposition of the country, nearly 
the whole of Cornwall fell. 

When Alfred the Great divided the Saxon king, 
dom into hundreds, Winnetone was one of the seven 

* Hitchens, Vol. I., p. 453. 



246 THE MANOR OF 

into which the county was parcelled ; and at the 
time of the Exeter Domesday (1086) Winnenton, 
or Winnianton, was a considerable manor of thirty- 
six and a-half hides, and belonged to the King, as 
pointed out by the very first words of the Survey : 
" The King holds WlNETONE," etc.* 

Immediately after the Conquest, when the county 
was re-arranged into nine hundreds, the manor of 
Winnienton was included in Kerrier. 

In 1235 it belonged to Roger Earl of Cornwall, 
who gave it to Gervase de Harnington. 

A<? early as 1308 (the date usually quoted is 1401) 
it was the property of the Carminowes, and from 
them tt went, by the marriage of one of their 
heiresses, to the Trevarthian family. 

In Edward IV.'s reign, about 1470- 1, it was in 
the possession of the Reskymers, from whom it 
passed to the Arundells by marriage, and in 1801 
was purchased from them by John Rogers, Esq., 

* About the year 900 Alfred the Great caused a Book of 
Survey to be made, much of the same nature as Domesday 
Book, and it was in existence at Winchester when William 
the Norman came, but is since lost. 

The present Domesday was ordered by William the Con- 
queror, and begun in the year 1080, and completed in 1086. 
It is known by several names as Liber de Wintonia, Rotulus 
Wintonia, Liber Regis, Scriptura Thesauri Regis, and the 
Liber Censualis Anglise. 



WYNYANTON. 247 

of Penrose, in whose family the manor still con- 
tinues. 

Carminow mill, and all that remains of the house, 
and chapel once belonging to that ancient family, 
stands on the bank of the Carminowe creek, on the 
east side of the Looe pool, at the extremity of 
Gunwalloe, partly in that parish and partly in 
Mawgan. 

The house must have been one of considerable 
pretensions, and historians say that there was a 
fine chapel, but that both fell into decay in the 
time of the Arundells. Sic transit gloria mundi. 
Even the buildings which would remind us of the 
bygone chivalry of England are no more, and we 
have to grasp the remnants of the past through 
the ideal fields of romance. The painted window 
the carved doorway, the shield on the corbel stone, 
often all that is left us — 

Those Knights are dust, 

And their good swords are rust, 

Their souls are with the Saints we trust. 

The writer of Iter Connubiense,* lamenting this, 
asks mournfully, " But where are their habitations ? 
Alas ! their escutcheons have long ago mouldered 
from the walls of their castles. Their castles them- 

* Charles Spence, Esq., in the Transactions Exeter Dioc. 
Architec. Soc, Vol. V., p. 113. 



248 THE MANOR OF 

selves are but green mounds and shattered ruins ; 
the place that once knew them knows them no 
more. How beautifully true ! No longer does the 
champing war-horse paw in the castle-yard ! The 
helmet which once glistened in the sunbeam has 
long been hanging over the dilapidated tomb, and 
the plume which floated proudly on the breeze 
has sunk beneath superincumbent dust, or bowed 
before the weightier labours of the spider !" 

The words of the poet come with doubled force 
to one's mind : 

" Out upon Time ! It will leave no more 
Of the things to come, than the things before. 
Out upon Time ! who for ever will leave 
But enough of the past for the future to grieve 
O'er that which hath been, and o'er that which must be : 
What we have seen our sons shall see — 
Remnants of things that have pass'd away, 
Fragments of stone, rear'd by creatures of clay !" 

It is true of the chivalry of Cornwall : true 
enough of the far-famed Carminowe of Carminowe. 
The house is gone, the chapel is gone; their only 
memorial is in the south transept or Carminowe 
aisle of Mawgan Church, where rest two stone figures, 
supposed to represent a Carminowe and his wife, and 
said to have been removed from their own chapel. 
The Knight is cross-legged, six feet long, and his 
shield bears the Carminowe " bend." 



WYNYANTON, 249 

In Davies Gilbert's History of Cornwall (iii, 132) 
is the following, from the MSS. of Hals : — " In the 
local place of Carminow those gentlemen had their 
ancient domestic chapel and burying-place,the walls 
and windows whereof are still to be seen, in which 
place also formerly stood the tombs and funeral 
monuments of divers one notable person of this 
family ; of which sort, in the beginning of James I. 
reign, when the chapel was left to run to ruin and 
decay, the inhabitants of the parish of Mawgan, 
out of respect to the memory of those gentlemen, 
brought from thence two funeral monuments in 
human shape, at full length, made of alabaster, 
freestone, or marble — man and woman, I take it — 
curiously wrought, and cross-legged, with two lions 
couchant under their feet, and deposited or lodged 
them in this parish church of S. Mawgan, where 
they are yet to be seen, though the inscriptions and 
coat armour thereof are now obliterated and defaced 
by time." 

That there should be so very few and scanty 
notices of so ancient a family, is not only sur- 
prising, but a matter of great regret. What 
romances may there not be hidden away in the 
dim past of Carminow, if we could only light upon 
them ! That they were as a race of great anti- 
quity, repute, and influence, there is no doubt; 



250 THE MANOR OF 

indeed, it has been said that they claimed to be 
descended in a direct male line from King Arthur, 
and that one of them was ambassador from Edward 
the Confessor to William the Conqueror, then Duke 
of Normandy, but the story is quite unsupported. 

Robert de Carminow, in Henry III. time, held 
a Knight's fee, £16 per an. ; and he is supposed to 
be the Sir Robert or Roger* who in 1270 accom- 
panied Prince Edward (afterwards Ed. I.) in the 
last crusade to the Holy Land. 

The Robert de Carminow in 1256 was not yet a 
Knight, though he held a Knight's fee. He might 
therefore have been summoned to take up his 
Knighthood before the last crusade in 1270. 

Carew speaks of " Dominus Rogerus de Carmi- 
now," who in 1297 — twenty-seven years after the 
crusade — was summoned as a Knight to attend 
Edward I., and a deed of 1285 mentions Johanna 
as the widow of the Roger de Carminow,i" who 
probably filled up the gap between his namesake 
Roger and the Robert of Hals. 

William de Carminow, son of Robert, held also 

* The accounts of Carew and Hals seem to have confused 
Robert and Roger. 

t From an able paper on the Carminows in the Journal of 
the Royal Inst, of Cornwall, by J. J. Rogers, Esq., Vol. II., 
p. 146, who conjectures this Dominus Rogerus to have been 
the Crusader, whose effigy is in Mawgan Church. 



WYNYANTON. 25 1 

same time as his father, in the reign of Henry III., 
by Knight's fee, £15 per an., though this is con- 
jectured not to be their whole estate, only what 
they held " per servicium militare." 

Sir John de Carminow (grandson of the Robert 
above) and his son, Oliverus de Carminow, are both 
named as men-at-arms, " Milites et Homines ad 
arma," in the 17th year of Edward II., A.D. 1324, 
and each of them had £40 per an. in land and 
rents. 

There is a Sir Oliver of Carminow, Knight, who 
is mentioned as being Lord Chamberlain to Ed- 
ward II. ; but there is a difficulty in reconciling 
this statement with the other names and facts in 
the pedigrees of the Carminow family, constructed, 
so far as it is complete, by J. J. Rogers, Esq., from 
the title-deeds of the Carminow manor in his pos- 
session. 

In the reign of Edward III. a Thomas de Car- 
minow was Rector of Mawgan. He was admitted 
Aug. 6, 1349, and is the first rector of that parish 
of whom there is any record. 

In the will of a representative of an ancient 
Cornish family — that of Thomas Trethurffe, Esq., 
A.D. 1528 — there is a mention of a Nicholas Car- 
minowe (cosen of the testator), who was probably 
one of the Boconnoc branch of the Carminow family- 



252 THE MANOR OF WYNYANTON. 

There is a memorial of the Carminowe family in 
the church of S. Eata, or S. Teath, as it is now 
called, where the pulpit bears the arms of Car- 
minowe, it having been presented by one of them 
in 1630.* Their motto, " Cala rag withlow," signi- 
fies, " A straw for the tale-bearer " and Gilbert 
relates that it originated from a law-suit brought 
by Lord Scroope, in the reign of Edward II., 
against Carminowe of Carminowe for bearing the 
same arms as his Lordship, viz., in a field az, a 
bend or, and which right was afterwards referred 
to the most learned men of the day, amongst 
whom was present John of Gaunt. Before this 
assembly Carminowe proved his right, by his an- 
cestors having borne the arms before the Norman 
Conquest ; but as Scroope was a Baron of the 
realm, it was ordered that henceforth Carminowe 
should bear the same coat, with a pile in chief, 
gules, for distinction. 

* Iter Cornubiense, part iii., in the Transactions of the 
Exeter Dioc. Architect. Soc, Vol. V., p. 113. 




THE LOOE POOL. 



In Cornwaile's famed land, bye the pcole on the moo/e, 

Tregeagle the wickede did dwelle ; 
He once was a Shepherde, contented and poore, 
But growing ambitious, and wishing for more, 

Sad fortune the shepherde befelle.— Old Cornish Poem. 



fOUNDING the parish of Gunwalloe, at 
its western extremity, partly in that 
parish and partly in Sithney, is the 
famous Looe Pool and Bar which forms, 
by its obstruction to the waters from the hills, 
one of the largest lakes in the county. 

The legend says it was the work of Tregeagle, 
— and who, in Cornwall, has not heard of the 
unholy spirit Treageagle ? — still employed, and ever 
at his work, making trusses and ropes of the sea- 
shore sand. 

Time was when Ellas Town (Helston) was a 
thriving port, with its trading vessels sailing up 
the estuary to exchange merchandise for tin. But 
Tregeagle, the wicked Tregeagle, whom all the 
saints in Cornwall could not lay at rest, did all 
the mischief. Set to work by the Holy St. Petroc, 
at Bareppa in Gunwalloe, his task was to carry 



254 THE LOOE POOL. 

sand in sacks across the Looe Pool and empty 
them at Porthleven till the beach was down to the 
rocks. Laden with a sack of sand of enormous 
size, the doomed spirit was wading across the mouth 
of the Looe, when one of the wicked demons, who 
were always on the watch for him, tripped him up, 
and the contents of the sack fell into the sea. There 
it rests to this day, a bar of sand effectually block- 
ing the entrance to the harbour, and not all the 
saints in Cornwall or their eloquence availed to undo 
the demon's and Tregeagle's work. 

Anyhow, the bar is there, and time out of mind 
has been there, though it is said the Phoenicians 
sailed up the creek to the foot of the Hellaz Hill. 
There is a curious echo on the water, in some 
places double and very distinct. 

On the western side of the pool is Penrose, re- 
puted to have been the seat of a family of that 
name from before the Conquest till 1744, when it 
passed by will of the last owner of the name to his 
niece Mrs. Cuming, and' she in turn sold the 
manor to Hugh Rogers, Esq., in 1770; in whose 
family it remains to the present time. 

The lake, or pool itself, is a spot of especial in- 
terest on account of the physical peculiarities of its 
obstructing bank of sand ; and, more than all, the 
legendary traditions that float around it, combine 



THE LOOE POOL. 255 

to fix it for all time as one of the many examples of 
the superstition of the Cornish race. 

Fed by the Looe river, and enlarged by smaller 
hill streams, it spreads itself along the valley which 
lies between Helston and the sea, and would be 
but an insignificant estuary indeed but for the bank 
of sand which forms its chief peculiarity. This, how- 
ever, bars the waters in until the whole forms a vast 
lake stretching to the very edge of the town. When 
the waters are so high it is then necessary to make 
an artificial outlet, and this is done by " cutting the 
bar," as it is called ; the modus operandi being this 
— a small channel is dug in the sand bank, and once 
the water percolates through, it speedily enlarges 
the gap, until with a burst the whole opposing bar- 
rier is swept away by the huge torrent into the main 
sea. 

The sight, as may be imagined, is a very grand 
one, for the meeting of the waters, the pent up lake 
and incoming ocean waves, throws a huge pile of 
water into the air many feet. 

It has been said this may be seen at a distance 
of six or eight miles from the shore. 

In order, however, to be duly at liberty to per- 
form all this, certain customs and ceremonies are 
to be observed, and they are so religiously to this 
day. Permission tobreak the bar must be asked on 



256 THE LOOE POOL. 

behalf of the inhabitants of Helston of the lord 
of the manor, and to this day, by ancient custom, 
the mayor of Helston presents at Penrose, as due, 
two leathern purseswith three halfpence in each, upon 
which the needful permit is given. 

All this reminds one very much of the ancient 
charters of early kings of England, by which, not 
only offices, but certain rights were granted with- 
out any written charter, but upon observance of 
certain customs. Edward the Confessor gave the 
rangership of Berewood forest, with a hide of 
land, to one Nigel and his heirs to be held by a 
horn* 

William the Conqueror conveyed the Lordship 
of Broke to the priory of S. Edmunsbury by 
supplicating the saint, and laying on the altar 
a knife wrapped up, in the presence of his no- 
bles.f 

Queen Elizabeth, whose lodge is still standing 
in Fair Mead Bottom, High Beach, in the parish 
of Waltham, granted the privileges of cutting wood 
to the poor of the neighbouring parishes upon the 
tenure of their striking the axe into the forest 
boughs at midnight on the nth November each 

* Ogborne's History of Essex, p. 164. 
t Blomefield's History of Norfolk. 



THE LOOE POOL. 257 

year. Failure in this was forfeiture of the Char- 
ter.* 

There is a very curious charter extant, in verse, 
granted by William the Conqueror, found in the 
register office of Gloucester, and it is worth trans- 
cribing. 

" I, William Kyng, the third year of my reign, 

Give to the Paulyn Roydon, Hope and Hopetown, 
With all the bounds both up and down, 
From heven to yerth, from yerth to hel, 
For thee and thine there to dwell, 
As truly as this kyng right is myn, 
For a cross-bow and an arrow, 
When I sal come to hunt in Jarrow ; 
And in teken that this thing is sooth 
I bite the whyt wax with my tooth 
Before Meg, Maud, and Margery 
& my thurd son Henry." 

If we may believe the earliest MSS. we have of 
Cornish historians,-)" there was an instance of this 

* In the pleas of the Crown, 12 Edward I., we find— 
" Robert Hurdyn holds an acre of land and a bakehouse 
in the town and castle of Lanceveton (Launceston) by the 
serjeantry of being in the castle of Lanceveton, with an iron 
helmet and a Danish hatchet (pole-axe), for forty days in the 
time of war at his own proper costs ; ^and, after the forty days, 
if the Lord of the castle chooses to detain him in the same 
castle, it should be at the cost of the said lord." — Blount's, 
Ancient Tenures, p. 69. 

t Hals' MSS. 

S 



258 THE LOOK TOOL. 

very kind of charter of custom in respect of the 
Looe. 

It is said that Edward I. frequented Helston, or 
designed to do so after the reversion to himself of 
the earldom of Cornwall, in 1272, by the death of 
his uncle Richard, Earl of Cornwall and King of 
the Romans, and that he granted land by the tenure 
of grand serjeantry to William de Trevelleon con- 
dition of bringing a fishhook and boat and nets, at 
his own proper cost and charges, for the king's fish- 
ing in the lake of Helston, whensoever the king 
should come to Helston, and as long as he should 
tarry there. 

Certain it is that Hel-les-ton was a privileged 
place long before the Norman Conquest, since the 
whole hundred of Helston was denominated by it 
even in Alfred's days, and the name appears in 
Domesday Book under the title of Terra Regis. 
In a catalogue of Cornish earls we find that the 
privileges of the town and manor were incorpo- 
rated by charter by Richard Plantagenet, Earl of 
Cornwall, third son of Henry II., surnamed Car- 
Lyon, Cceur-de-lion, by the name of Helston, and 
the seal affixed to the charter named is a "lion 
rampant."* 

* ^rooke^s "York Herald." Hals, V. I., p. 28-29. 



THE LOOE POOL. 259 

A curious charter, granted in the second year of 
King John, runs as follows : — Johannis Dei Gratia, 
&c. Sciatis nos concessisse, etc burgensibus nostris 
de Helleston villam de Helleston, cum pertinentiis 
ad firmam, per antiquam firmam et debitam ; et de 
cremento quatuor librarum habendum et tenen- 
dum, quamdiu nobis bene et fideliter servierint, et 
firmam suam bene reddiderint, reddendo firmam 
suam per manus suas ad Scaccaria nostra, medie- 
tatem ad pasche, et aliam medietatem ad festum 
sancti Michaelis. Etc siendum quod crementum tale 
erit quale est firma. Teste, Simone de Pateshull, 
apud Dorcestriam, 18 Aprilis, Carl, anno 2 ; Jo- 
hannis, p. 1, m. 50, p. 1, 96.* 

* Among the fines and amerciaments, in " Madox's History 
and Antiquities of the Exchequer," are the men of Helston, 
fined in different sums with other towns, in the reigns of K. K. 
Richard and John, for grants and confirmation of liberties 
and exemptions of various kinds. 

Homines de Helleston, r. c, dexl marcis & j palefrido com 
putatis in illis xx marcis & j palefrido prius promissis, pro 
habenda carta regis quod burgus de Helleston sit liber burgus, 
& quod burgenses ejus [dem] habeant gildam mercatoriam et 
quietantiam per totam terram regis de teloneo, pontagio, 
stallagio et testagio et sullagio ; salvis, in omnibus, liber- 
tatibus civitatis Londoniae. Et pro habendis alijs libertati- 
bus quae in carta illa'continentur." — Polwhele, Vol. II., p.p. 
68, 70, 71, 73. 




CONCLUSION. 

ERE then the author's pleasant task con- 
cludes ; if the foregoing pages prove half 
the interest to the reader they have been 
to the writer, he will be rewarded. 
In this far off land of romance, there is indeed 
every incentive to give the rein to imagination, 
and amid the exceeding loveliness of the rock- 
bound coast, forget the stern realities of life. 

Wandering on a calm summer's day by the 
limpid pools and rocky nooks of Gunwalloe Cove, 
the poet's ideal may be realized : — 

Slow sank the sun into the sapphire sea, 

Tinging the dimpling waters with his last 

And loveliest beams of light, as the soft breeze 

Of evening kiss'd the sea nymphs, and the wave 

Rose gently, and as gently fell again, 

Soft murmuring. I stood beside a rock, 

Whose rugged head look'd up into the sky. 

Grey as the handle of the scythe of Time : 

But lower down, between the martin's nests, 

Rich ruby lichens in the sunset gleam'd 

Like golden fingers clasping them around 

Lest the rude winds should tear them ; and beneath 

A dark cliff beetled coldly o'er the deep, 

Fringed by the lace work of frail threaded foam 

That mermaids weave and hang along the shore." 



INDEX. 







PAGE 


PAGE 


ANCIENT mill ^ . 




• 74 


" Caerth " of Camden 


189 


lamp of Mencage 




106 


Carminowes, The, 


246 


charter of Helston 




259 


Celtic remains of Bochym . 


67 


rights held by Custom 


256 


Chil, The, 


106 


Antiquities of Cury 


and 


Church Restoration 25 years 




Gunwalloe 




94 


ago .... 
Charms .... 


27 
239 


Barrows 




192 


Coins .... 


96 


Beads 




IOI 


Cornish Language 


197 


Bells in Cury Church 




33 


tale of naval woe 


179 


Gunwalloe . 




127 


names extant in Brittany 


3 


BOCHYM 




46 


lamp .... 


106 


early history of . 




49 


Cornwall all forest 


1 


origin of the name 




5° 


CUR ANT YN. Saint . 


2 


temp. 1549 . 




52 


CURY CHURCH . 


8 


the Bellotts 




55 


the Hagioscope . 


11 


ancient tapestry 


62, 64 


State previous to resto- 




stained glass 


6 


3- ^4 


ration 


15 


secret staircase . 




64 


evidence of Chantry 




restoration bythe Dave) 


r 


Chapel . 


16 


family 




62 


rood loft openings 1 8, 25 


ancient chapel 




65 


alabaster carvings 19, 23 


Bochym aisle in Cur> 




Ho'y Rood . 


20 


Church . 




42 


S. Doorway 


25 


Bochym Celts . 




66 


Holy water stoup 


29 


Boneshave 




238 


old alms box 


3° 


Bonfires 


90, 240 


tower and bells . 


33 


BONYTHON. 






Cury great tree . 


108 


name . 




81 


Cury Cross 


33 


the Bonythons 




82 






Latin verses 




85 


Destruction of tumuli 


T 93 


the Bonython flagon 


87 


DOLLAR WRECK 


J 55 


Bonfire rock 




89 


schemes for recovering 




Druidic fires 




90 


the treasure 


156 


Bronze implements 




76 


history of the dollar 




Carved Bosses in Cury 


roo: 


40 


mine 


158 



262 



INDEX. 





PAGE 


specimen of the dol- 




lars 


175 


singular dreams . 


175 


Druidic fires 


90 


Dreams, singular 175 


, 178 


Earth. 


189 


Early Christian seal 


194 


Faction fight at Cury grea 




tree 


in 


Furry or Flora dance 


241 


GUNWALLOE CHURCH. 


tradition of its founders 


124 


probable date 


126 


portions of rood screen 126 


old windows 


126 


ancient font 


126 


Belfry 


127 


Restoration 


128 


Registers 


129 


Curious entries . 


130 


singular epitaphs 


131 


ancient cross 


131 


Gunwalloe day . 


185 


cross, site of, .13] 


,186 


Hill castles 


191 


Holy well at Gunwalloe 


182 


Injunctions of Ed. VI. 


21 


King Charles's Letter in 




Cornish . 


209 


Lady's trees 


237 


Lazar houses 


13 


Language (Cornish) . 


197 


specimens . 


207 


old proverbs 


206 


Lizard lights 


61 


Looe pool valley 


71 


the pool 


253 


Looe bar 


255 


cutting the bar . 


254 


ancient custom . 


256 


Magpies 


227 



PAGE 
. 24I 

• 245 
. 227 

. 228 

• 243 

7°> io 4 

• 43 



May dances 

Manor of Wynyanton 

Mermaids . 

Old Man of Cury (The) 

Paul's Pitcher Day 
Phoenicians 
Porcelain tablets 
Pradanack Cross . .195 
Restoration of Cury Church 38 
Registers at Cury . . 33 
Gunwalloe . . .129 
Re-opening of Cury . . 45 
Roof of Cury as restored • 39 
Roman coins . . .90 
Rumon, Saint ... 2 

Seal, early Christian . .194 
Sepulchral barrows . .192 
Skeletons in Cury rood loft 25 
Sprinkling the apple trees . 243 
Stone implements . . 67 
Supernatural (The) . . 224 
Superstition of the Cornish 225 

Traditions and old customs 235 
Tradition of Cury great tree 1 1 1 
Tregeagle . . .253 

WEST COUNTRY FOLK 215 
a hardy people . .216 
remarkably suspicious 219 
hospitality . . . 222 
Winwaloe. (Saint) . .116 
Windows in Curry . . 44 
WRECKS, list of, in Gun- 
walloe Register . . 135 
in Mullyon . .141 

various incidents . 144 

Wreck of the Coquette . 148 
the Dollar . . .155 
Wreckers . . . .181 
Wynyanton (Manor of) . 245 
temp. William I. . . 246 
The Carminowe family 247 



LONDON : 
MARLBOROUGH, GOULD, AND CO., WARWICK LANE, E.C. 



